Immigration on hold in 2013

Marcus Atkinson

HispanicOhio.com editor

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The views and opinions expresses in this article are of that of the author alone and do not represent he views and opinions of www.hispanicohio.com or its partners/affiliates.

If the 2012 elections did anything, it gave President Obama a clearer vision for his administration.  His 2012 campaign shared much the same of his 2008 campaign, including the promise of comprehensive immigration reform, but because of the travesty in Newtown Connecticut and the unresolved fiscal issue, much to the chagrin of immigration advocates, the issue of 12 million undocumented immigrations is on the backburner and won’t likely have legislation passage until 2014, likely creating anger from organizations such as the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), and smaller organizations such as the Hispanas Organizadas de Lake y Ashtabula (HOLA), which is headquartered in Painesville Ohio.

It is hard to argue against President Obama winning the 2012 election without the Latino vote; in addition it is hard to argue against the Latino vote being mobilized last summer from the directive granting deferred action for a select group of undocumented immigrants as well as Obama’s public acceptance of gay marriage. With poll estimates of 70-75 percent of the Latino vote going to Obama last election, Obama must have comprehensive immigration reform as a high priority.

Initially, the plan was to settle the nation’s budget crisis, known infamous as “the fiscal cliff”, but here we are after Dec. 31 and though legislation has been passed, it only slowed our nation’s money problems by passing tax legislation, but avoiding the spending issue.  It is very likely the national budget will not be resolved for about six months.

“I have read the bill and can’t find the spending cuts — even with an electron magnifying glass,” Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina told the New York Times. “It’s part medicinal, part placebo, and part treating the symptoms but not the underlying pathology.”

Congress is expected to deal with spending cuts next month, and our nation’s spending limit in March.

Holding back Congress taking on comprehensive immigration reform (CIR), are unforeseen factors such as what recently occurred in Newtown CT,  The tragedy which occurred has caused Congress to put gun legislation not only on the front-burner, but next on the agenda.   In addition, new gun laws would probably have to pass through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which happens to be the same committee that would work on immigration reform – and immigration is expected to be very comprehensive.

President Obama understood going into the 2012 elections the one campaign promise from 2008 he had not met was fixing the countries immigration system and with another four years to fulfill his promise, the president has once again put CIR on the top of his agenda. Saying Congress has “a lot of work to do in 2013”, the president (who has deported more people in his four years than any other president), has a detailed proposal of how to fix the nation’s immigration issue. Congress knows CIR is needed, but unfortunately whenever both parties agree on a need; both parties take advantage of the situation

“I am concerned that an issue such as immigration where we can find strong bipartisan consensus will be demagogued and politicized because that is the environment,” Alfonso Aguilar, a Republican strategist at the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles told Reuters.

Essentially both parties have CIR immigration that includes a change in border security (not only for the Mexican/United States border, but the oceans and the great lakes as well), a more sophisticated and updated VISA program, and a national employer verification process to ensure potential employees are United States citizens.

It appears reform will not be visited until summer at the earliest, which means the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the Unites States will continue hiding and living in fear until our Congress takes action.