Obama Puts Immigration on Backburner, Promises Reform if Reelected

 Immigration is one of the issues that will be put on the backburner as U.S. President Barack Obama focuses on the campaign trail in the hopes of winning his second term in office.

Obama has been blunt about election-year constraints. At a March 6 news conference, he acknowledged Hispanic supporters' anger over his failure to achieve immigration changes, including paths to legal status for some undocumented  immigrants.

"When I came into office, I said, 'I am going to push to get this done,'" Obama said. "We didn't get it done. And the reason we haven't gotten it done is because what used to be a bipartisan agreement that we should fix this ended up becoming a partisan issue."

Obama said a presidential election can change the policy landscape.

"My hope is that, after this election, the Latino community will have sent a strong message that they want a bipartisan effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform," he told reporters.

Speaking to Russia’s president, Obama added that he will have "more flexibility" to deal with another touchy issue, missile defense, after the Nov. 6 election — if Obama wins, that is. The statement might have raised few eyebrows had Obama made it nonchalantly to a U.S. audience. Instead, it kicked up a fuss because Obama thought the microphones were off when he spoke with Dmitry Medvedev in South Korea, and because Obama seemed to take his re-election for granted.

Will Obama boldly push for big changes in immigration, Social Security or other difficult issues if he wins a second term?

Recent history offers few hints. The last four presidents to win re-election saw their second terms bog down in scandals or controversies: Richard Nixon and Watergate; Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra; Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky; Bush and Hurricane Katrina and the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.

Obama may have "more flexibility" to deal with missile defense, immigration and other issues if he wins a second term. Whether he will have a mandate to do so is another question.

SOURCE 







Obama Administration Rejects Amnesty International Charges that its Immigration Enforcement Violates Human Rights

Amnesty are just another Leftist front

A new Amnesty International report criticizes the U.S. government for its treatment of the Hispanic and indegenious communities living along the border, according to gantdaily.com. The report urged the Homeland Security Department to suspend parts of its border enforcement program until the agency's Inspector General can investigate and make recommendations for improvements.

The Homeland Security Department issued a statement denying allegations of human rights abuses.

"Amnesty International's report is based almost entirely on either outdated information or anonymous ancedotes that can be neither investigated nor resolved," the statement said. "Moreover, the report does not offer thoughtful, actionable recommendations for improvement but instead calls for the wholesale suspension of immigration enforcement programs nationwide."

The Amnesty International report claims that Latinos and those that appear to be of Latino origin are disproportionately affected by immigration enforcement measures. 

Homeland Security Department officials say the only program that even comes close to the racial profiling alleged by Amnesty International is the Secure Communities Initiative. 

The Secure Communities program requires that the fingerprints of anyone who gets arrested are checked against the federal immigration and FBI criminal records. A match between the records could indicate the person arrested is an illegal alien who should be deported.

Homeland Security Department officials say ethnic discrimination is not the purpose of the Secure Communities Initiative. Instead, the program reduces "the risk of discrimination or racial profiling because the program applies to all who are arrested and booked for crime, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents," a Homeland Security Department statement said.

Along with the Homeland Security Department, a denial came from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"The State of Texas does not have immigration laws. However, DPS officers arrest criminal aliens, regardless of country of origin, when they violate state laws," spokesman Tom Vinger said in a statement.

NumbersUSA President Roy Beck praises the Obama Administration for denouncing the Amnesty International report.

"It is gratifying to see the Obama Administration stand up against the too-prevalent nonsense that enforcing immigration laws generally is a violation of human rights," NumbersUSA President Roy Beck said. "We stand behind the Administration and most of the pro-enforcement community in supporting continuing work to ensure that illegal aliens are treated humanely during the arrest, detention and deportation processes. We regret that the Obama Administration at times feeds the perception that immigration enforcement is a bad thing, such as when it argues against various state immigration enforcement laws."

SOURCE