News Update - April 23, 2011
By Alan Lee, Esq.†‡
President Hosts White House Meeting on Immigration Reform on April 19, 2011
President Obama convened a meeting of politicians and business leaders on April 19, 2011, in a show of pro-immigration reform bravado promising to continue working to build a bipartisan consensus around immigration and to lead a civil debate on the issue in the months ahead. Invitees included not only administration officials, but former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, police chiefs of New York and Philadelphia, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and the bishop of the archdiocese of Salt Lake City. Although Republicans are opposed to comprehensive immigration reform, this writer believes that they should wake up and smell the roses in 2011. They should think about who cares more about the immigration issue, heartland Americans or American Hispanics and other minorities, and remember that at voting time, the immigration issue in the past has meant little to most heartland Americans and much to American Hispanics and other minorities. If President Obama is perceived hereon to have made strong, sincere efforts to promote immigration reform only to be thwarted by the Republicans, the 2012 elections may be a repeat of 2008.
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