WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama vows to refocus Democrats’ attention on jobs and the economy, advocates for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws say they are still gearing up for a battle in the Senate in coming weeks, despite fading hopes for victory.
Washington’s drawn-out health care debate badly damaged prospects for an immigration bill this winter. It ate up weeks of the Senate’s time, sapped progressive lawmakers’ energy and, most recently, stoked a populist backlash that cost Democrats the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the chamber’s most prominent champion of liberal health care and immigration policies.
With time running out before lawmakers want to start focusing on the November elections, “immigration is deader than a doornail,” one veteran Senate lobbyist put it.
Advocates’ frustration peaked last week when Obama devoted a single sentence in his 71-minute State of the Union address to a topic he ranked as a top legislative priority last summer, after health care and an energy bill.
Obama support doubted
“We should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system,” Obama said, offering no specific remedy or timing, ” and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has introduced a House bill favored by immigrants’ supporters, said there was “disillusionment” among advocates across the country.
“There’s almost universal consensus that the president — it was too little,” Gutierrez said, noting that by contrast, Obama pledged in the speech to repeal the military’s ban on service by openly gay people this year.
“He was very weak on immigration, lackadaisical,” Gutierrez added.
“I had very low expectations, but he (the president) surprised even me with how little he said,” added Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice.
He and other advocates are pushing to legalize many of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, strengthen enforcement of immigration laws and provide a way to control the flow of immigrant workers.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who has taken the lead in drafting a Senate bill, rushed to reassure immigrants’ advocates and Latino groups that they were still working with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to find Republican backers for a bipartisan bill, while shying away from setting a timetable.
Dems deny neglect
“It’s something we’re committed to do, and we’ll do it as soon as we can,” Reid told reporters.
A White House official said Obama’s mention of the issue implicitly made it part of his agenda for the year: “What he said in the speech was that we should move the process and legislation forward this year.”
Nevertheless, backers say they will have to thread a needle to move a bill to the Senate floor by a springtime deadline, after which they fear midterm election politics will take hold.
Opponents of increased immigration say they see little political will in Congress to help illegal immigrants when unemployment is near 10 percent.
In a poll last month by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the public rated the importance of immigration near the bottom of a list of issues.
