Obama Pledges to Push For Immigration Reform but It Will be Tough

While on April 28, President Obama had told reporters he was not sure whether Congress had the “appetite” to tackle immigration reform, this Wednesday speaking at a Cinco de mayo celebration at the White House the President continued to criticize the recent Arizona immigration law. He also went on to clarify his stand on comprehensive immigration reform by saying that in fact Congress should begin work on the immigration reform issue. Without a comprehensive federal approach as Obama puts it “ state and local authorities continue to take "misconceived" steps at addressing the illegal immigration problem”. Still, even if Obama puts immigration reform on the agenda he continues to struggle with the continuing rift between Republicans and Democrats. Furthermore, the recent incidents of the Gulf of Mexico oil slick and the failed Time Square car bomb scare have continued to consume much attention from the media and authorities and some analysts are asking if immigration reform is to much after the struggling to pass the controversial health care reform . Not to mention that although Americans agree that there is a need for immigration reform, people are still divided as to what should be done, and the economy continues to be a top priority on everyone’s minds. This is pointed out in a recent poll conducted by Fox news that found (quote)“The issue of immigration falls far behind other top issues on voters' minds. The economy remains the priority — in fact, the poll finds nearly 10 times as many voters cite the economy (47 percent) as immigration (5 percent) as being the most important issue facing the country today.” The poll also found that, “ 61 percent of voters nationally think Arizona was right to take action instead of waiting for the federal government to do something on immigration.” Because the federal government is failing to provide reform people are wanting to take things into their own hands and while this poll does little to provide positive encouragement about federal immigration reform it does indicate that people are getting impatient with congress. Obama has quite a challenge but a challenge does not mean that immigration reform can’t get done, people had doubts about health-care reform as well.

Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/05/obama.immigration.reform/index.html?section=cnn_latest

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/health-care-reform-immigration-reform-achievable/story?id=10584261

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/07/fox-news-poll-arizona-right-action-immigration/