According to an article on The Hills Blog: “The votes aren’t there for the Obama administration to achieve its desired immigration reform, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday.”
Counting probable votes behind the scenes before moving forward with a plan that has failed to pass Congress twice in the recent past is good strategy. Obama should support immigrants while working on getting the votes for CIR to pass. Issuing Executive Orders or using other available methods of countering the anti-immigrant environment that the Bush administration left in its wake would be a good start. Many opponents of CIR simply focus on the legalization component of the proposals, however improving avenues for legal immigration is equally important as the system we have now is frankly out of control.
