Latinos Pressure Obama On Immigration Reform Following Large Turnout

Before a huge crowd in San Diego last summer, Barack Obama vowed to make fixing illegal immigration a top priority as president, and Latinos nationwide responded with massive support for him on Election Day. Now, they are pressing him to keep his promise.

"We voted in large numbers for Obama," said Juan Salgado, board president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a nonprofit based in Chicago, Obama's training ground for immigration issues when he was a senator. "If we're sitting here two and a half years from now and absolutely nothing's been done, people are going to start asking questions."

From Cape Cod to California, activists on both sides of the volatile issue are girding for battle. Supporters of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants - most of whom are Latino - want Obama to press for a path to legal residency for them. Opponents say reform is impossible at a time when unemployment is soaring, and instead want tougher border security and less immigration to preserve Americans' jobs.

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Comments

[WhirledTraveler]

The best way to fix illegal immigration is to enforce the laws currently on the books; mass deportation may be costly but it's cheaper than the alternative.

And if the Minute Men must step in where the government won't, I fully support their efforts.

[dcrinaz]

What you are suggesting is not only illogical and ill-informed, it is also inhuman and un-American. It's also bad economics. I doubt you have even done the math to see the cost in dollars and to our economy to do as you suggest. The cost to our moral standing is even worse. Tell me, how much do you think that it would cost to remove 11 million human beings who are here working, paying rent or mortgages, buying goods and services and paying taxes? You should do some research on the communities that have had the immigrant population leave. The negative financial impact is tremendous. And let's face it, what you purport to do is to enforce laws that are unjust, poorly designed and just plain wrong for our nation. If this were 1850, I'm sure you'd want the U.S. government to enforce slavery laws 100%, too. Try to be informed about a subject before you speak about it. It does everyone good.