America's Voice Blog

Posted 01/09/09 at 04:24pm

Signs of the Times

all manner of signsWe at America's Voice have to confess, we're a little giddy when we look around. Why?

As AV Executive Director Frank Sharry mentioned yesterday on the National Immigration Forum's Press Briefing (Listen/Read):

We believe that there is likely to be a great window of opportunity probably between September of 2009 and maybe the end of March 2010 in which President Obama and the new Congress are likely going to work together to fashion a historic overhaul of our broken immigration system.

 

Why do we believe immigration reformwill move forward this year? According to Frank:

The signposts that give us this optimism and confidence, number one, the election created a very new understanding of how immigration plays in our political arena.

...I think this past election has created space because what we saw was that those who have - are very strong opponents of immigration reform- are a distinct minority in the electorate, that those for whom immigration reform is a defining issue, in particular Latino and immigrant voters, turned out in record numbers to reward those who they thought would have the best chance of delivering immigration reform.

In short, Latino voters, the fastest-growing group of new voters in our nation, turned out, and voted overwhelmingly for reform-minded candidates. The noisy, but small, group of activists that killed immigration reform legislation in 2007 did not muscle many electoral victories.

But that's not all. Sharry went on to explain that leaning into reform turns out to be a win with swing voters:

And perhaps an overlooked aspect of it is that swing voters for whom both parties spend an enormous amount of energy trying to attract, are really tired of the fact that the national government hasn't solved this problem. And they want solutions not sloganeering. And I think that this is a cautionary tale for Democrats who now control Congress and the White House that what voters want is action on tough problems that deliver concrete results.

The signs of the times point decisively to comprehensive immigration reform getting ready to move, and soon. Just what are they?

  1. President-elect Obama campaigned with a promise to begin work on comprehensive reform during his first year in office and has not backed away from this.

  2. The Obama Transition Team chose a team of solid Immigration experts to staff one of only seven Policy Working Groups formed to advise the new administration.

  3. Key appointments and leaders to join the new administration are strong on comprehensive reform. (Solis, LaHood, Napolitano, Muñoz, and more)

  4. Senator Reid's encouraging immigration statements, confirmed again on Sunday's Meet the Press bode well for action on immigration.

  5. Majority Leader Reid's inclusion of an immigration placeholder bill as one of his first top ten bills (No. 9 here) is a concrete first step.

  6. Bush's exit interview shows that waiting is not an option.

  7. Some Republican leaders, including Senator John McCain, are moving quickly to attempt to reform their party's hard-line stance on immigration, as mentioned yesterday in The Hill.

We will be working hard to ensure these signs lead to a real reform in the not-so-distant future.

Will you join us?

Comments

President Obama must be busy on how he will impose the change that he promised to the people while he is campaigning. And the people are looking forward for the change that would come. However, the Obama nominee is being criticized left and right for failing to pay taxes of about $42,000 to the Internal Revenue Service between 2001 and 2004. At the time, Geither was working for the International Monetary Fund, and apparently U.S. tax law mixed with working for an international company was too complicated for him. Good thing getting a payday loan is nice and simple. Barack Obama and his team are defending the nominee, stating that his tax mistakes were honest mistakes and Geithner is the right person to appoint as the nation’s Treasury Secretary amid the global financial crisis. Nonetheless, the Democrats have decided to delay Geithner’s confirmation until after the Jan. 20 inauguration. You can find out more about the Obama administration and what some people are saying about it at your <a >payday loan</a> source.

  • 01-19-09 By Zackery

Submit a comment

Please enter the word you see in the image below: