White House Tries to Calm the Waters

By Jerry Kammer and Jerry Kammer on April 20, 2011
Politico

has provided a concise explanation of yesterday's White House confab in favor of "comprehensive" immigration reform, reporting that "The meeting itself has been framed as an effort to show Obama supporters that he is trying to make progress on the issue even if it's doomed to stall in Congress."

Last night, on Univision's newscast, reporter Lourdes Meluza added an interesting description of the administration's efforts to placate criticism from advocates of illegal immigrants. She said that some participants in the meeting "told us that the president promised to conduct a campaign in favor of immigration reform at the same level at which he worked on health care reform or the current campaign to reduce the deficit. But he did not promise to make administrative changes, as some asked him to do. He wants to change the law."

In speaking of "administrative changes," Meluza was referring to the increasingly insistent demands by the advocates that the president issue executive orders that would provide temporary legal status to large numbers – perhaps millions – of illegal immigrants.