Memo to President Obama on a Recipe for a Down Payment on Immigration Reform in 2010

Antonio Gonzalez and Oscar Chacon have a great piece on immigration reform in the Huffington Post, “Memo to President Obama on a Recipe for a Down Payment on Immigration Reform in 2010.”  It starts:

” A defining moment in relations between the Latino community and the Obama Administration is fast approaching as the clock runs out on federal immigration reform legislation in 2010. By the end of June approving “comprehensive” immigration reform will be practically impossible given Republican resistance combined with the usual glacial pace of work in the Senate.

Compounding the Latino dilemma is the looming possibility that the Democrats who won more than 70% of the Latino vote in 2008 may lose control of one or both Houses of Congress, setting back immigration reform hopes through at least 2013.

Meanwhile, Latino communities are suffering massive deportations and raids, racial profiling and discrimination not seen in generations.

Already, plans are being made to punish the federal legislators of both parties in November 2010 for failure to enact legalization for undocumented immigrants -an issue of great concern for Latinos. Democrats blame anti-immigrant Republicans, but that only explains the logjam in the Senate. Indeed, Latino leaders are crystal clear that the White House has given only lip service to immigration reform. Worse, Speaker Pelosi has blocked action on three broadly supported reform proposals in the House of Representatives for months.

However Latinos will forgive them for now if Mr. Obama and the Democrats embrace a doable four point strategy in 2010 that delivers short term relief for under-siege immigrants, partially reforms our broken immigration system, boosts the U.S. economy, and jettisons the current punitive premises for immigration reform while continuing to seek bipartisan legislative consensus as well as public support for comprehensive reform in the mid-term.

Here is the “down-payment in 2010″ on comprehensive immigration reform plan.”

Click the link above for more on immigration reform on the installment plan.

KJ