Will 12 million illegal immigrants in US get much needed relief in 2010?

Filed in archive Americas on January 28, 2010

© Tomás Fano

Since the time Barack Obama has taken over the reigns from President Bush everyday has been a challenge for him. Having to deal with problems of terrorism, war, recession at the start of the career as a president of world's most powerful country has certainly made his life difficult and 2010 is not going to be any different for him. The area of immigration and impending reforms will have to be dealt by Mr. President this year. The problem of immigration spans several administrations and at stake is the lives of 12 million undocumented immigrants living in US most of whom comprise of Latinos.

Barack Obama had termed the problem of immigration as priority in his presidential campaign and in past few months has personally made clear and through his aides that he is committed to bring reforms in the immigration policy. He said that he was committed to bring change in 2010 as currently he was preoccupied with the agenda of health care reforms. This could not be achieved earlier under the previous two regimes of George W. Bush.

People looking to migrate freshly into the country don't need to smile as these immigration reforms will be meant for 12 million people residing in US with no legal status and would not be aimed at people looking to hop into the country in the future. The legislative moves which have happened recently have raised hopes that year 2010 would bring solution to this problem which has been lingering for a very long time.

December 2009 saw Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez bringing a bill for migration reforms in lower house of the US Congress and bipartisan initiative from Democrat Charles Schumer and Republican Lindsey Graham was expected to reach the Senate in 2010. There has also been intensification in civic and political pro-reform campaigning featuring the likes of celebrities like Eva Longoria. But before this happens the health reform debate has to finish so that there is enough room to bring forth the issue of immigration in a successful manner which leads to positive outcome.

On the other hand immigration activists feel that a discussion needs to happen soon as the mid term elections are expected to take place for all the lower house and one-third of the senate. Politicians are well aware of the fact that the Latino community, which is the largest minority in the US, is a big vote bank. As per he US Census Bureau, number of minority voters shot from 2004 to 2008, to 9.8 million Latino voters whereas Asian voters stood at 3.4 million. It has been said that Latino vote has played a major role in the win of President Obama and he certainly can't ignore them.

2008 US elections saw immigration issue being brought into limelight and now everything rests on the shoulder of the President as to whether he keeps his promise or not and it needs to be seen whether the road for illegal immigrants gets easier or tougher.