Barack Obama still hopeful on immigration

President Barack Obama on Monday told an audience of predominantly Latinos that he’s hopeful an immigration overhaul bill will be able to pass Congress soon, even though he was unable to shepherd legislation for the DREAM Act to his desk before the first half of his first term, when Democrats controlled both houses.

Obama made the remarks at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington as part of a forum on Latinos and education. At the town hall, a mother who identified herself as an activist for undocumented young people told the president about students who want to give up in school because they don’t think they’ll be able to stay in the United States.

“I think that change in this country sometimes happens in fits and starts,” Obama replied. “It doesn’t happen overnight. If you think of the history of the civil rights struggle, though even after Brown v. Board of Education, there were still struggles to ensure that ultimately everybody was treated with dignity and respect.”

Obama then noted that the DREAM Act, which would provide a means to citizenship for young people who stay in school or join the military, was “very close to passage” in Congress last time around. He added young people shouldn’t “be giving up, because if people in the past had given up, we probably wouldn’t have women’s rights; we wouldn’t have civil rights.”

An American strength, he said, “is that we’re always attracting new talent to our shores — people who reinvigorate the American dream. And that has to continue in this generation. And so they should know, these young people should know that they have a president who believes in them and will continue to fight for them and try to make sure that they have full opportunities in this country.”


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52083.html

I gave up on him at least for this term. If he wins another one then I'd expect something out of him.

i hope a republican takes his job democrats dont stand for anything even when its the very people who help them win elections

Wake up Obama it's over we're not buying shit from
You no more .

I think dreamact will pass shortly before elections as a way to attract Latino voters as a "what have you done for me lately" strategy.

Nah, he'll probably do something but nothing as grand as that. He'll probably combine marriage equality with same sex couple to petition their lovers to stay. It's pretty much impossible for him to get anything done since the reps are so united and the dems have no balls.

Um.. you guys realize there are three branches of government right? Obama can't pass a federal law by himself.

And also, introducing the DREAM to a republican congress, imo, would only have negative momentum, as it has no chance of passing.

I'm starting to hate this forum, the comments about giving up on the president are just useless and ignorant. Think about it, if we choose a republican in 2012, he will most likely pass a law to stop the Dream Act from being introduced ever.

We must start advocating for our movement and stop believing that one man can change everything. Obama is as good as it gets, stop whining about what happened last december and start organizing for the local/state movement that is taking place right now.

Right now I wouldn't mind him getting impeached or otherwise removed. Biden can't be a bigger liar.

Well we are between a rock and a hard place, on one side we have a mofo who only gives us lip service, on other we have assholes that want us gone, period.

Also you cannot pass a law preventing the introduction of a law. You can have a senator introduce a law legalizing child porn, he will get a lot of [negative] attention, but he cannot get kicked out or arrested for it. Only way to pretty much permanently block an issue would to pass an amendment that "congress shall make no law legalizing persons illegally present in US and jurisdiction thereof".

Whoever you will vote for, shit will NOT get any better because right now we are the scapegoat for ills of this dumbfuckinstan. Not the banks, not the fucktards taking a loan for that shit they can't afford, not the banks again for not knowing to do with all those fucking houses they got as equity, not fucking republicans for removing financial regulations back in 2001. Nope.

Obama is the lesser of two evils. He's harmless but he won't get anything done. He needs to stop being a push over for Republicans and he needs to get his political party to act as a team. It saddens me that Republicans can stand together to block a bill and Democrats just scatter to allow what Republicans want to pass. We can just hope Obama is able to get his act together otherwise he will lose his second term or even if he wins his second term there is no certainty that he will be fully committed to us. And, *poof* there goes another 8 years of our lives we lost.

I have a morbid curiosity to see how a Republican/Tea Party member would run this country but I'm almost certain there is no future here for us during that regime. As much as we might dislike Obama, he is our only hope. We need him to champion for us and really be invested in doing it.