White House Predicts Immigration Reform Unlikely in 09

It’s not exactly news that the Obama administration isn’t pushing very hard on immigration reform, but hearing directly from the White House that a comprehensive bill on the subject isn’t likely to happen this year is sure to dismay immigrants’ advocates.

As Roll Call reports, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged that despite “the president’s desire for it to happen,” referring to comprehensive immigration reform, “currently where we sit the math makes that real difficult.”

President Obama is scheduled to meet with members of Congress on Thursday to discuss the issue — a meeting immigrant advocates are eagerly billing as the “opening bell” on moving immigration reform forward.

According to Gibbs, though, Obama isn’t planning to ring that bell anytime real soon. Gibbs said Obama hopes that “later this year that we can have the beginning of formal debate on that.”

COPYRIGHT_WI: Published on https://washingtonindependent.com/48250/white-house-predicts-immigration-reform-unlikely-in-09/ by - on 2020-07-31T00:00:00.000Z