Immigrant rights activists said Friday that a White House meeting this week to reaffirm support for immigration reform -- featuring a surprise appearance by President Obama -- had helped mollify growing frustration over what some perceived as backpedaling on reform promises.
But many said that action will be needed to keep the faith among immigrants and their supporters, particularly Latinos who turned out in record numbers to help elect Obama last year.
"We've heard all of the beautiful orato
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There was that horrible earthquake that devastated Haiti. Last night, Massachusetts and the United States experienced a political earthquake that could be as in many ways as profound with the election of Republican Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley to the U.S. Senate. And today is the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Barack Obama, which means that the Massachusetts debacle will be magnified by media assessments of the President's first year.
The immediate debate in Wash
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The health care needs of an estimated 6.8 million undocumented and uninsured immigrants "has become the third rail in the debate over health-care reform," The Chicago Tribune reports. Some health care advocates have proposed broadening the proposals before Congress to include this population, but "fierce opposition has kept the idea off the table."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has "emphasized that illegal immigrants would not be covered under the current proposals." And the Congressional Hispanic
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Locked in a healthcare debate that is claiming much of his energy, President Obama acknowledged that a push to overhaul the nation's immigration system will have to wait until 2010 and even then will prove a major political test.
Obama suggested it would be too ambitious to aim for passage of new immigration laws before the end of the year, at a time when he will be confronting "a pretty big stack of bills." READ FULL STORYRead more…
A day after President Obama announced that legislation to overhaul immigration laws would have to wait until next year, the secretary of homeland security played down the need for change in a speech here and took a tough stance on enforcing current immigration laws.
The secretary, Janet Napolitano, defended the administration’s assertive strategy against illegal immigrants and companies that employ them, relying largely on programs started under President George W. Bush.
That strategy has dra
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