Immigration Politics: America has met the enabler, and he is us - KansasCity.com

Column by Mary Sanchez on Obama and immigration reform

America has met the enabler, and he is us - KansasCity.com: "President Barack Obama is carefully creating the illusion that he’s serious about immigration reform. In a major speech in El Paso, Texas, this month, he pitched the idea that reform will strengthen the middle class by undercutting an underground economy of cheap labor, and will make the U.S. more competitive globally.

But what can Obama do to advance this reform? Some would say not much, given a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. He could be presidential, beginning with setting new policy priorities. He could halt further hefty contracts with the prison-building industry to erect more detention facilities. He could ensure that true criminals — violent offenders — will be deported, not the immigrant caught rolling through a stop sign or the hundreds of young people enrolled in college, the so-called Dream Act students."