The first eighteen months of the Obama Presidency have come and gone, and the President has yet to address immigration reform. That being said, the President has assured us that he WILL address immigration reform. Not now, but soon. So we should all just be patient. Our time will come. Not now, but soon.
What the President means by "soon" is not in 2010. No, no, not in 2010. There is an election in 2010, and Nancy Pelosi must shield her Democrats from any more controversial votes before the mid-term elections or risk losing the House. As for Harry Reid, he is hanging on by a thread in Nevada, so you can forget about the Senate taking the lead.
No, soon means some time in 2011, or maybe in 2012. Well, not in 2012. There is a big election in 2012, and we all know what happens if you address immigration reform in an election year (see 2010). As for 2011, keep your fingers crossed that the Democrats don't lose the House or you can forget about it.
In fairness, President Obama hasn't had the time to address immigration reform in his first year in office. He has obviously been very busy since getting elected.
Busy deporting more undocumented immigrants than George W. Bush did in any single year in office...
Busy covering up abuses of immigrant detainees...
...and busy raiding businesses that employ United States citizen workers, and also provide jobs to the very people who are patiently waiting for him to make immigration reform a "top priority" (as promised).
I don't know about you but I have had enough of being patient. As an attorney in the trenches of the immigration war I have had enough of having to tell a parent, spouse, or child that their family member is getting deported because of the Obama administration's mandate to deport 400,000 people in Fiscal Year 2010.
I'm tired of having to explain to my clients that the President has turned his back to the Hispanic electorate after he got their votes because their family isn't important enough to be a "top priority" (as he promised).
In most instances the people President Obama has deported must wait 10 years before they will be eligible to return to the United States. Should their United States citizen family members just be patient while their family is destroyed by the deportation of their loved-one? Should a child just be patient while they grow up without their mother or father? Should innocent children who have known no other country but the United States be patient and put their dream of an education on hold while the President decides what "soon" is.
The time for being patient has come and gone like a broken Obama campaign promise.
There is no single campaign promise that President Obama has broken that has more of an impact on the immediate daily lives of Americans, because for every one of the estimated 11 million undocumented aliens in this Country there are countless U.S. citizens who will lose their parent, spouse, or child to deportation.
If people only understood the importance of immigrants to the financial security of the United States they would not be so dismissive of the issue of comprehensive immigration reform, and they would not callously ask for our patience.
Soon is now Mr. President.
We have lost our patience.
No comments:
Post a Comment