Immigration Reform Not In the New Government's 2009 Agenda

Over the past weekend, President-elect Barack Obama scrubbed Change.gov, his transition Web site, deleting most of what had been a massive agenda copied directly from his campaign Web site. The official agenda on Change.gov has been boiled down to the following paragraph: a “plan to revive the economy, to fix our health care, education, and social security systems, to define a clear path to energy independence, to end the war in Iraq responsibly and finish our mission in Afghanistan, and to work with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, among many other domestic and foreign policy objectives.” At the publishing of this newsletter, a specific immigration reform plan had not been included in the 2009 website agenda.

AILA has stated that “provided those thorny issues can be productively dealt with, there may be a window of opportunity later in the year, before the end of 2009, for some package of immigration reforms to come before Congress”.  The economic crisis is expected to worsen. With a recession upon us and unemployment figures raising, many domestic policy priorities like immigration reform, will move to the back burner. However, E-verify, Conrad 30, EB-5, and the Religious Workers programs all have to be reauthorized by March 6, 2009. AILA believes this may create space for a debate on additional measures, and announced that it will be pushing hard for consideration of the top immigration interim priority: the Menendez family- and employment-based visa recapture bill: “Reuniting Families Act”