Thread: Obama talks immigration, but not with Congress !

What can Mel Martinez tell Barack Obama about immigration issues?
April 19, 2011 at 3:40 pm by Mitch Perry



President Obama met with a bipartisan group of national figures Tuesday afternoon to discuss the nation’s immigration laws.

According to press reports, among those invited to the confab were former Florida U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Tucson, Arizona Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor, who has been critical of his state’s passage of the controversial SB1070 illegal-immigration legislation from a year ago.

In a statement issued late Monday, the White House said the president was holding the meeting to discuss the importance of fixing the nation’s “broken immigration systemâ€

Crazy Uncle Luis Gutierrez not invited? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked.

President Obama met with a bipartisan group of national figures Tuesday afternoon to discuss the nation’s immigration laws.

Bipartisan? That's the laugher of the day.

Related:

Brewer: We Weren't Invited to Obama's Immigration Forum
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-235344.html

John C Wester - Catholic Bishop John C. Wester pushing immigration reform SALT LAKE CITY — With the DREAM Act headed for a vote in the U.S. Senate today, Bishop John C. Wester of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City is engaging in an 11th-hour, renewed push for passage of the federal legislation offering amnesty and eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors.

Wester lobbied Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, both R-Utah, by writing each senator a personalized letter urging him to vote in favor of the Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors Act, which already passed the House of Representatives on Dec. 8.
"These are bright, talented young people," Wester writes in both letters.

"With the help of the DREAM Act, (they) could one day achieve their God-given potential and fully contribute their talents to our great state and nation. … The United States is the only home they have ever known and is the country to which they want to give their talents and energy."

Hatch declined comment Friday on Wester's request, but his office reiterated the senator's intention to vote against the DREAM Act as currently constituted. Bennett's office did not respond to phone calls or e-mails.

During a phone interview Friday, Wester explained why he believes it makes sense to pass a narrow portion of the broader immigration debate such as the DREAM Act now as opposed to waiting for palatable comprehensive immigration reform to come along at some future date.

"This is something that's accessible now," Wester said. "It's within reach, and it's something that I think both sides of the aisle agree is a good bill.

"I know that they're coming up with reasons why they no longer like it in some cases, but we're trying to remind them that at heart this has been the same basic bill that we've always had in the DREAM Act. It's a win-win for the country and a win for the immigrant and, frankly, it's a win for all of us."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed a cloture motion Thursday night for the DREAM Act, meaning a vote will be held Saturday to determine whether the bill can be brought to the Senate floor for a binding vote. Sixty votes are needed to pass cloture and carry the bill to a determinative vote, but as of Friday night it remained unclear whether Reid can secure those 60 votes. Republicans are threatening to filibuster the DREAM Act during this lame-duck session while reserving the right to possibly revisit the issue next year after newly elected members join Congress.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7000 ... eform.html

The DREAM Act subject came at a perfect time for those seeking to become President 2012.

April 19, 2011


Immigration Is Lead Topic as Leaders Are Gathered

By JULIA PRESTON


President Obama told a gathering of business, labor, religious and political leaders at the White House on Tuesday that he remains committed to an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws and wants to try again in the coming months to push Congress to pass a bill.

With his re-election campaign launched this month and Latino communities growing increasingly frustrated with his immigration policies, Mr. Obama summoned more than 60 high-profile supporters of the stalled overhaul legislation to a strategy session, looking for ways to revive it. Among those attending were Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, an independent; Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio, a Democrat; and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican.

Two big-city police chiefs, Raymond W. Kelly of New York and Charles Ramsey of Philadelphia, were there, as was Sheryl Sandberg, a top executive at Facebook, and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the largest group of evangelical Christians.

Prospects for the proposed policy, which would grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants and revamp the immigration system, seem bleak in this Congress, with staunch Republican opponents of the bill controlling pivotal committee positions in the House of Representatives. Recently Latino leaders have stepped up their criticism of Mr. Obama, as deportations have reached record numbers under his administration and he has offered no relief from the crackdown on immigrant communities.

Latino voters helped several Democrats, including Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, survive the Republican shift in the midterm elections last fall, and they are expected to be a major force in the presidential vote next year.

In the closed meeting, Mr. Obama argued that the overhaul would bring immigrant entrepreneurs to the United States and was a crucial piece of the economic recovery, according to several people who attended. He sought views on whether to try to pass smaller pieces of the massive overhaul, such as a bill that would give legal status to illegal immigrant students, or one that would increase visas for highly skilled foreign workers.

The president asked for help to “change the debateâ€

Obama, advocates discuss immigration law overhaul
(AP) – 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under pressure from advocates and the 2012 re-election calendar, President Barack Obama on Tuesday enlisted a diverse group of elected officials and religious, business, labor, civil rights leaders and law enforcers to help build support for a long-stalled overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.

Obama is making a new attempt to fulfill his campaign pledge to enact broad changes early in his term. But his failure there has angered some Hispanics and immigrants' advocates, voters who helped elect him in 2008 and whom he'll need at the polls again next year.

A White House meeting with a group of about 70 people led to no breakthroughs on the way forward, just a call to action.

"The president asked the group to commit to moving forward to keep the debate about this issue alive, to keep it alive in the sense that it can get before Congress, where the ultimate resolution of it will have to be obtained," said Bill Bratton, the former police chief in Los Angeles and New York City. "The idea being to go out into our various communities and to speak about the issue."

Obama pledged to continue working to get Democrats and Republicans to agree on changes and said he'd lead a "civil debate" on the issue in the months ahead, the White House said in a statement. He also said success won't happen if he alone is leading the debate.

"The president urged meeting participants to take a public and active role to lead a constructive and civil debate on the need to fix the broken immigration system," the White House said. "He stressed that in order to successfully tackle this issue they must bring the debate to communities around the country and involve many sectors of American society in insisting that Congress act to create a system that meets our nation's needs for the 21st century and that upholds America's history as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants."

The meeting was an attempt by the White House to demonstrate far-reaching support for immigration overhaul and to include voices often not heard in the debate, such as San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg.

Castro told The Associated Press afterward in an interview that Obama pledged to spend as much time on this issue as he spends on the deficit and health care.

The meeting also came ahead of Obama's visit Thursday to Los Angeles to raise money for his re-election campaign. Immigrants and their advocates planned to protest outside the Sony Pictures Studio, where the fundraiser was being held, to remind Obama of his campaign promise and how they say his deportation policies are tearing apart their families.

The government forced a record 393,000 illegal immigrants to leave the country last year.

Others at the meeting said Obama acknowledged that the enforcement and deportations are affecting families, but was clear that he would take no action that could be seen as usurping Congress' role and authority.

Immigrant advocates have been pressing for a number of administrative changes, such as granting hardship waivers to the undocumented parents of American-born children so the adults can continue living in the U.S. with their children.

Obama is feeling pressure from the Latino community, including harsh criticism from the Spanish-language media, and others to fix what he has said on numerous occasions is a broken immigration system.

Hispanics helped elect Obama in 2008. He won 67 percent of the burgeoning Latino vote, more than double the 31 percent garnered by Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain. But Obama's hopes of matching or even topping that performance when he stands for re-election next year could be complicated by failure to deliver on a major promise to an important Democratic constituency.

Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who helped rally Hispanic voters to support Obama during the 2008 campaign, told a Chicago crowd over the weekend that he wasn't sure he could back Obama next year if the president did not step up on immigration. Last week, 22 Senate Democrats also sent Obama a letter asking him to delay deportations of younger illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. by their parents.

Legislation known as the DREAM Act that would help such immigrants eventually qualify for citizenship failed in the last Congress.

Obama insists that he is committed to overhauling the system. But he also argues that he can't make headway without Republican support. He does not have enough Democratic votes in the Senate to muscle any legislation through and Republicans control the House.

He has called for a broad policy that emphasizes border security, crack downs on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and requiring illegal immigrants to acknowledge that they broke the law, pay back taxes and penalties, and learn English before they can begin the process of qualifying for legal status and eventual citizenship.

Republicans oppose a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, calling it "amnesty."

www.google.com

Added an article from above to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-6246--0-0.html

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who helped rally Hispanic voters to support Obama during the 2008 campaign, told a Chicago crowd over the weekend that he wasn't sure he could back Obama next year if the president did not step up on immigration.

Whoever Luis supports for president the American people will not support! His threats are meaningless.

Related Thread Here Utah’s Wester attends White House immigration meeting:

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-235393.html