Obama Still Must Tread Carefully on Immigration Reform

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

President Obama is walking a slender tightrope on what’s still the most volatile, contentious, and potentially politically life threatening issue to Democrats. That’s immigration reform. At first glance, the political stars seemed to be aligned for him to do what Bush failed twice at and that’s get a deal on immigration reform.
The light trial balloon that he floated on reform punched the right buttons. He has respected GOP South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham on board and working on a reform package with key Senate Democrats. This drew barely a ripple of comment and ignited no loud denunciations from anti-immigration foes. The Federation for American Immigration Reform which whipped anti-immigration sentiment up to a fever pitch three years ago barely mentioned the Obama proposal on its website. The group issued no impassioned action alerts demanding that the immigration talks be stopped in their tracks. The Minuteman groups that made a clownish spectacle of themselves with their gun toting antics at the Mexican border are long gone.

There is no visible organized Senate opposition. The majority of Democrats in Congress backed reform bills in 2006 and 2007 and will back an Obama immigration reform bill again. The Latino vote is big, vocal, active, and getting antsy that no progress has been made on immigration reform. Latino leaders repeatedly demand that Obama back up his campaign pledge to push a reform bill through. They’ve also saber rattled Republicans that they can again kiss Latino vote’s good-bye if they dig in their heels and stonewall reform again.

The guest worker plan that infuriated anti-immigration activists in the previous failed bills was yanked from the current proposed bill. Obama and the Democrats have gone even further and given the GOP senators pretty much what they demand as the price for getting a bill through. Undocumented workers must pay hefty penalties, pay all taxes, learn English, and wait for an extended time before attaining citizenship. Obama must also assure that any bill mandate failure to comply could result in deportation. Obama must also pledge to hermetically seal the border to stop the flow of immigrants.
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A December America’s Voice poll found that a majority of voters and that includes Independents and Republicans, back comprehensive immigration reform. The number who said that undocumented workers should get the summary boot from the country has plunged. But there was a cautionary note in the poll, as with other similar polls. A majority are just as adamant that undocumented workers should not be given an easy stroll down the pathway to citizenship. They also demand strict enforcement of the provisions that undocumented workers pay taxes, and a penalty, be English proficient, patiently wait for approval, and that the borders be secured.
There’s also much devil in the details in the plan Graham and New York Democrat Charles Schumer have outlined so far. It’s the vagueness in those details that can be twisted and mangled by immigration reform foes to again try and torpedo reform. The foes have not totally disappeared. There’s still the loose network of anti-immigration organizations, and the legions of right wing talk jocks, tea baggers, and Fox News Network talking heads who can stir the troops to oppose any reform. The far right Christian Life and Liberty Net sent out a panicked alert mocking Graham as Grahamnesty and railed against him for backing amnesty for illegal aliens. The stock attack charge that any immigration reform bill is a de facto reward for breaking the law still stirs anger and passion in many Americans.
The loss of thousands of jobs, with official unemployment still nudging double digit, and with low wage American workers bearing the brunt of the downturn also presents a wedge for immigration foes. They almost certainly will again hammer that undocumented workers snatch jobs from needy American workers. The charge has been totally debunked but it still touches a raw nerve.
Immigration reform can’t be separated from partisan politics. The November mid-term elections are months away and Democrats have already suffered three hammer blows in losing a revered Senate seat in Massachusetts, and governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. Many Democrats will be squeamish about the risk of more losses if immigration opponents gather steam and again turn immigration into a finger-pointing, contentious, and polarizing issue.
Obama still has a major fight on his hands to get a health care reform bill passed. The bill is not on life support, but there’s still no guarantee despite the towering concessions Obama and Senate Democrats have made to get a bill, any bill, passed that that will happen. To risk stoking the same voter fury over immigration as health care has would be political folly.

Obama gave immigration reform short shrift in his State of the Union. But he’s put it back on the nation’s table. That’s a good thing. Now that he has the watch is on to see how hard or light he’ll tread on the issue.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His nationally heard talk show is on KTYM-AM 1460 AM Los Angeles, Fridays 9:30 AM and KPFK Pacifica Radio 90.7 Los Angeles, Saturdays Noon PST.

Did Obama Really Torpedo Immigration Reform?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain made a curious charge through a spokesperson immediately after his talk before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Arlington, Virginia. He flatly said that his Democratic rival Barack Obama helped torpedo the immigration reform bill in the Senate in June 2007. This is a serious even inflammatory charge. It probably won’t do much to hurt Obama’s standing among the majority of Latino elected officials and core Latino Democrats. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of them back him. But it could stir more murmurs among some about his credentials as the change advocate on economic and foreign policy matters, and that includes immigration reform. Worse, it could raise even more doubts among rank and file Latino voters about Obama’s willingness to go to the mat on immigration reform. This would be a disaster for him. Latino voter support is absolutely crucial in Obama’s drive to bag the White House.
In the 2004 presidential election, Bush got nearly forty percent of the Latino vote. Without those votes Democrat John Kerry would have won the White House.
It not just the Latino votes that Bush got and Obama and McCain are clawing to get. It's where the Latino votes come from that could cinch the victory for Obama or McCain. The greatest numbers of Latino voters are in California, Florida, Texas and New York, Illinois and New Jersey. These are the key electoral states that virtually determine who will sit in the White House for years to come.

This much is clear in looking back at the Senate immigration debate in the spring 2007, Obama did vote for five amendments dubbed “poison pill” amendments. They badly threw out of whack the carefully crafted, but always fragile, compromise package that Democrats and Republicans cobbled together to get a bill passed. The Amendments lowered the visa quota for guest workers, put a severe time limit on the temporary guest worker program, and the temporary worker visa programs, revised the system for evaluating immigrant citizenship claims, and changed the time limit on the renewal of visas for some immigrants.
The amendments were backed by liberal and labor groups. The intent was to make the bill more expansive, balanced, and fair. But it was also the classic case of noble intent clashing with political practicality and a very tenuous Senate Democrat and Republican consensus on the type of immigration reform bill that realistically could pass, and that Bush would sign. The amendments predictably were rejected. Both Senator Ted Kennedy and McCain turned thumbs down on them (McCain did not vote on one of the amendments). The time delay, energy expended and wasted debating the amendments (and others), upset the delicate balance and helped dig the hole deeper for the bill.
Though Hillary Clinton and other top Senate Democrats also backed the amendments, they didn’t draw much fire for it. They are hard line partisan Democrats who make little pretense about voting anything other than a straight party line on legislation or amendments to legislation that labor and liberal advocacy groups solidly back.
But Obama claimed to be different than them. The amendment debacle drew a mild knock that Obama had betrayed his oft stated promise to elevate his head above petty, narrow party politics and be a bi-partisan consensus builder. This means that he will be the one to smash through the dead end morass of party squabbling and Congressional paralysis to move things along in Washington. The paralysis has drawn the disgust and fury of millions of voters and earned Congress approval ratings that wallow every bit in the historic low depths as Bush’s approval ratings
The immigration reform bill killing amendments, and Obama’s vote on them, give McCain the hook he needs to lambaste Obama as an immigration reform spoiler. Worse, it allows him to try to plant the idea among some Latino voters that if Obama can’t be trusted to do what it takes to get immigration reform through, than why expect him to do what it takes on other issues such as affordable health care that are vital to Latinos.
Though the crowd at the NALEO conference publicly and enthusiastically chanted Obama’s name, privately he had a nervous moment. In a behind the scenes meeting with more than a dozen Latino leaders he reportedly was pressed to spell out exactly where he stood on immigration. Some also weren’t too thrilled that in the past Obama sounded every bit as tough as the anti-immigration hawks in backing a border fence. Immigration reform advocates vehemently oppose the fence.
Despite the vigorous cheers among Latino elected officials for Obama and the near certainty that he’ll net the big percentage of Latino votes, it still doesn’t mean that the Latino vote is not a bit of an X factor for him. Unfortunately, it won’t help that Obama now will be called to answer for what he did or didn’t do when it came to help make immigration reform a reality.