To appease the influential La Raza movement, the commander-in-chief met privately with his staff this week to devise a measure that will grant United States citizenship to the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, according to a major newspaper that published interesting tidbits about the secret gathering.
Among them is that the administration has planned a huge immigration rally in Washington D.C. later this month to “spotlight the issue and build needed momentum.†It will be made clear however, that citizenship will not be “granted lightly†and that illegal aliens must register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law.
Visibly overwhelmed with national security, the ailing economy, sky-rocketing unemployment and other hot-button issues, Obama is dedicating resources to immigration reform because the powerful La Raza lobby is growing impatient and pressuring him to fulfill his campaign promise to legalize the undocumented.
A well-known immigration rights community organizer in Chicago claims that Obama’s oblivion to the “pain wrought by our broken immigration system†could have a profound effect on the 2010 and 2012 elections. In a piece published this week in a major newspaper, the director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights warns the president that if he fails to pass immigration reform he can say “adios†to the Hispanic vote in 2012.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/mar/wh-meeting-legalize-illegal-aliensCandidate Obama promised to make immigration reform a priority during his first year in office, and the Latino vote surged to 10 million, from 7.8 million in 2004, and swung eight percentage points toward the Democrats.
Yet Obama did not prioritize the issue last year. To permanently affix the growing Latino vote to the Democratic coalition, he needed to call consistently for Congress to pass immigration reform. Instead, the issue got a brief mention near the end of his State of the Union speech, and Democrats are getting cold feet ahead of the midterm elections.
But if there is no serious progress on the issue, many disillusioned Latinos will stay home in November. Others will decide that because Democrats can't deliver on immigration reform, they might as well vote Republican on the values issues.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/hoyt-obamas-immigration-failure-322774.htmlSchumer, speaking as he walked quickly through the Capitol, said he was having trouble rounding up Republican supporters apart from Graham. "It's tough finding someone, but we're trying," Schumer said.
He'll throw 'em a bone to keep 'em quiet til he's rammed the HC crap up our ***.
Here are just a few of the organizations sponsoring the March For America:
AFL-CIO
America’s Voice
Asian American Justice Center
Casa de Maryland
Center for American Progress
Campaign for Community Change
Coalition for Humane Immigration Reform of LA
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
Ecumenical Advocacy Days
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Interfaith Immigration Coalition
Fair Immigration Reform Movement
Jobs for America Now
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
Mexican Americans for Immigration Reform
National Council of La Raza
National Immigration Forum
National Korean American Service and Education Consortium
SEIU
UFCW
United Farm Workers
UNITE HERE
US Conference of Catholic Bishops
map here:http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/march-index/
