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With all eyes still on the nation's plunging economy, it's hard to remember the last time President-elect Barack Obama made any mention of immigration — a campaign issue he pledged to tackle in his first year in office. And though they understand the necessary focus on the economy, activists on both sides of the fiery immigration debate are still preparing for political battle.

Immigrant advocates are making a pledge of their own: to hold Obama accountable for his campaign promises. They estimate Congress won't take up the issue until September and, if the effort succeeds, look for a new law overhauling the current system by March 2010, said Frank Sharry, director of America's Voice in Washington, D.C. On the other side of the fence, activists pushing for immigration restrictions — deflated by the new Democratic domination in the executive and legislative branches — remained optimistic that hard economic times will impede making a mass amnesty program palatable to the general public.

For now, Obama has kept mum on the matter, repeating on his transition Web site his pledge for “comprehensive immigration reform” and resurrecting an effort involving a multi-pronged approach to fix the immigration problem that failed to pass in Congress the past two years. Even Obama's “immigration transition team” — two law professors, Tino Cuéllar of Stanford University and Georgetown's Alexander Aleinikoff — is keeping quiet. Neither replied to repeated requests for an interview for this article.

Immigrant advocates who have met with them said Obama's advisers are not responding to media inquiries because they're still in fact-gathering mode, meeting with activists and politicians to eventually come up with a detailed strategy.

“They told us they're just listening and taking recommendations for now,” said Oscar Chacón, whose National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities drew 15 immigrant advocacy group leaders from across the country for a meeting Wednesday with Cuéllar and other Obama advisers. Though he was not promised any commitments, Chacón — a Salvadoran who entered the country illegally in 1980 but later gained U.S. citizenship — said he remains confident that immigration reform will be enacted because the advisers agree it's an issue linked to other must-fix problems.

Other leading national immigrant advocates said in the past week they'll wait patiently while Obama takes care of the economic mess, but they're not willing to let the crisis push the issue aside.

No specifics have yet been discussed as to what a new immigration bill would contain, but advocates concede that their desire for a legalization-with-penalties program for the estimated 12 million immigrants in the country illegally would have to be coupled with certain enforcement measures, such as beefed-up border security.

“We already learned in 1986 the downside of trying to do legislation piecemeal,” said Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of the Los Angeles Catholic Diocese, who publicly defied a 2006 law calling for prosecution of social groups helping unauthorized immigrants. “To be effective, you need a package that fixes all the broken parts.”

Immigration restrictionist advocates countered that while Obama may be willing to risk backing some measures with a good chance of passing Congress, there's no way he'll try for mass amnesty.

Roy Beck, a former journalist who directs NumbersUSA, a lobby group in Washington that seeks lower immigration levels, said Obama would “commit political suicide” if he tried to legalize millions of unauthorized workers with so many Americans out of work. He said migrant activists will likely win some concessions, such as Obama using presidential discretion to slow the unprecedented and ongoing series of immigration raids.

Beck's argument, particularly invoking American workers as a case against unauthorized immigrants, will become the revamped restrictionist mantra, noted a veteran observer of national immigration politics.

Their focus will change from beating the drum of illegality to protecting the average American worker from competing for jobs with unauthorized immigrants, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan think tank. Even if he still wanted an all-inclusive massive overhaul, the economic climate will not allow it, and Obama will likely back two smaller measures with the caveat of keeping his promise to advocates and return later to seek bigger changes, he said.

These narrower proposals could include two bills with bipartisan support that have lingered for years without approval: The DREAM Act, giving as many as 1 million students who are in the country illegally a chance to go to college or join the military and eventually gain permanent residency, and AGJOBS, a bill creating a new temporary agricultural worker program.

“There's no way he's going to be able to deliver on a comprehensive package,” Papademetriou said. “At best, he'll try for a down payment to assure people he's doing his best under current circumstances.”  http://www.greencardapply.com/news/news09/news09_0115.htm

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