Obama reverses stance on immigration

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By Stephen Dinan

On the thorniest of political issues, President Obama has embraced the enforcement-first position on immigration that he criticized during last year's presidential campaign, and he now says he can't move forward with the type of comprehensive bill he wants until voters are convinced that the borders can be enforced.

Having already backed off his pledge to have an immigration bill this year, Mr. Obama boosted his commitment to enforcement in the budget released Thursday. The spending blueprint calls for extra money to build an employee-verification system and to pay for more personnel and equipment to patrol the border.

This security-first stance is not unlike that of President George W. Bush, Bush Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, who said their immigration bill failed in 2007 because voters didn't trust the government to be serious about enforcement.

"If the American people don't feel like you can secure the borders," Mr. Obama said at his press conference last week, "then it's hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here, because the attitude of the average American is going to be, 'Well, you're just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year.' "

Republicans say the shift is a sign that Mr. Obama, who during the campaign repeatedly called the issue a priority, is uncertain how to move forward.

"I don't think Barack Obama understands the immigration issue. I don't know that he has spoken about it in any depth during his entire political career," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, the top Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee that handles immigration. "I think he's finding his position, and I think that's why we're getting these moving positions."

Immigration questions dog Mr. Obama. He was asked about the issue at a town hall in California and has been prodded by Spanish-language reporters, to whom he has given plenty of access.

But so far, even as he puts off a target date for signing a comprehensive bill, he has kept the support of immigrant rights groups, who applaud his changes at the Department of Homeland Security and say he's still committed to their top priority - a bill that would legalize most illegal immigrants.

"Given all the givens - you can't look at any one priority in isolation - he's made a decent start," said Angela M. Kelley, who used to be director of the Immigration Policy Center and is now vice president for immigration issues at the Center for American Progress. But, she said, he will need to show some progress before the year is out.

"The president needs to help Congress steer this issue, so there has be a pretty clear road map that he's stating publicly about how he wants us to proceed, and then have the internal workings of the White House support what he says publicly," she said.