Source: National Journal

A year ago, President Barack Obama addressed immigration in his State of the Union address saying  “I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration,” he said. “I know the debate will be difficult and take time. But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort.”

A year later, you can say that no progress has been achieved toward the comprehensive immigration legislation that Obama claims to support. The best that Congress has had to offer is a bill to rearrange how the annual allotment of green cards is doled out. The President used almost exactly the same phrases as last year:

• Reform our broken immigration system.
• Make border security a federal responsibility.
• Stop making the talented foreign college students go back to their home countries and compete with us.

The White House has done a few things on its own to pacify increasingly irritated Hispanics who thought they had elected an ally in 2008. The Obama administration recently proposed that the green-card process for immediate relatives of US Citizens who are in the country illegally, are allowed to stay in the US while they wait for a waiver. Also, the Department of Homeland Security is directing immigration enforcement officers to prioritize criminals over pregnant women in deportations. But at the same time, the administration is bragging about the highest deportation rate ever, sending mixed signals.

Anything short of a pure enforcement approach will be opposed by Republicans. Democrats and Hispanics, however, would be glad to see some muscle behind Obama’s insistence that he supports broad immigration changes that include legalization for illegal immigrants.