Will the Economic Meltdown Push Fixing a Broken Immigration System to the Back Burner?

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted March 13, 2009.

According to Rivlin, "the key to getting a bill passed is to thread that needle correctly, balancing what will work -- what immigrants will actually do in terms of legalization conditions and choosing to go through legal channels -- with what will pass with enough support in both parties and both houses."  

Still, not everyone in the reform movement is optimistic.

"Obama is not likely to push anything this year, when the fate of the capitalist system itself hangs in historic doubt," says Roberto Lovato, a journalist and immigrants-rights activist. While predicting a "softening of the Bush approach," Lovato thinks the Obama administration "will likely undertake cosmetic administrative reforms and tout them as the 'cambio' he was elected to bring."

On the Bush policy of detaining tens of thousands of undocumented workers in a largely privatized prison system that has been rife with horrific abuses, Lovato expects "fewer raids, provision of basic health services to detainees and reversals of 11th-hour Bush decisions," but no fundamental changes to the "hypermilitarized" approach of Bush's second term.

"I can't see Obama taking on Boeing, Corrections Corp. of America and others feeding off of the multibillion dollar trough of the military-industrial migration complex," he said. 

But incremental changes are already under way. Obama's first budget proposal contains money for reducing the massive backlog of applications for permanent residency, and when ICE conducted a workplace raid in Bellingham, Wash., the administration was quick to claim that the agency had undertaken the action without the knowledge of new Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano. 

And Politico reports the administration is gearing up for a major top-to-bottom review of immigration policy. According to the report, "key officeholders are Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, White House Intergovernmental Affairs Director Cecilia Munoz, who was previously a civil rights and immigration advocate, and Esther Olavarria, who was named to a top policy post at the Department of Homeland Security. Olavarria previously served as counsel to Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees." 

Ultimately, the prospects for reform may hinge on Obama's approval numbers later this year.

"Barack has set a precedent of swinging for the fences and tackling the big issues," said Rosenberg.

Immigration is certainly big, and tricky, but if the administration has the political capital come fall, we can expect to see a third push for meaningful reform of our dysfunctional system.

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Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

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