A Culture War Over Immigration Reform?

By Cynthia Tucker at AJC.com:

If President Obama genuinely believed that he could tamp down the hyper-partisanship that has come to dominate American politics, he had quite the education over the summer. He now knows better. Talk show hosts, well-paid lobbyists and political hacks managed to ignite a vicious culture war over health care, of all things. If they could do that, then the more familiar fights can only get bloodier.

So Obama probably isn’t looking forward to a return to immigration reform, which, when last discussed, revealed an ugly resentment of “the other” that our melting-pot nation hasn’t outgrown. But return he must. Like health care and climate change, immigration reform is an area where solutions have been put off for too long.

Last month, Obama pledged to push for the introduction of a bill implementing comprehensive immigration reform before the year is out, while cautioning that the overhaul won’t be easy.  Speaking at a presidential summit in Mexico, he said, “Am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No . . .There are going to be demagogues out there who try to suggest that any  form of pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable,” according to The New York Times. Click here for the rest of the column.

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