President Obama only made a cursory reference to immigration in his State of the Union speech last night.
He dedicated 37 words of the 70-minute speech to immigration.
"And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system -- to secure our borders, enforce our laws and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation," the president said.
Clearly immigration was an afterthought at the end of his speech.
And he emphasized more border enforcement and law and order without specifically saying he supports any kind of program to help people become legal permanent residents. He said so in the past but it wasn't clear in his speech.
The president's speech was a disappointment to immigrant advocacy organizations.
This morning the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights put out the following statement. Here is an excerpt:
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is deeply disappointed with the cursory mention of the need to fix our nation's broken immigration laws buried over an hour into last night's State of the Union address.
The passing mention of the need to "continue the work to fix our broken immigration system" came with no mention of the $1.5 trillion that immigration reform would generate to the economy or the need to close the trap door on the wage and safety floor for workers and our economy. The President's non-leadership on this issue also neglected to speak to the national security imperative of bringing the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and registering so that we know who is living in our nation. The President also failed to lift up the human impact of the destruction of hundreds of thousands of families - most with U.S. citizen members - through deportations of immigrant workers. At the current pace President Obama will deport over 400,000 immigrants in his first year in office, more than President Bush.
They are right. I understand Obama has a lot on his plate. But immigration is integrally related to the economy, health care and national security.
I think he's afraid to touch the issue. But if he delays further it's going to disappoint a lot of Latino voters who are already wavering in their support of the president.
No wonder Obama is getting bumped by Leno. http://bit.ly/csOXKq