False hopes on immigration
gazettextra.com
By ESTHER CEPEDA
Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011

CHICAGO — If there was ever any doubt that the only thing President Obama is truly gifted at is getting people to hope for change, we need look no further than his recent announcement to review the cases of up to 300,000 illegal immigrants facing deportation.

Too bad it’s false hope.

Despite initial excitement of the immigrant advocacy organizations who are fighting for nothing less than a full 1980s-style amnesty—and the correlated anger from conservatives who believe that last week’s decision to re-evaluate the existing enforcement priorities is just that—this is not a big step in immigration policy. This latest Obama re-election campaign stunt won’t affect 97 percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in our country. It is causing a lot of confusion within the very communities it is supposed to assuage, and it is further alienating those who must come to the negotiating table to hammer out a compromise for our immigration quagmire.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer chimed in quickly after the news broke, denouncing this plan as a “backdoor amnesty.â€