Mixed Messages On Immigration

Depending on your point of view, immigration reform is either full steam ahead or completely dead in 2010.  Yesterday congressional Dems released an outline on a plan called REPAIR:

Seeking to woo Republicans, the 26-page framework, which has not yet been written into a formal bill, emphasizes first taking steps to limit illegal immigration before offering new rights for those here illegally. But the REPAIR (Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform) proposal, as Democrats dubbed it, also would create a pathway to legal status for an estimated 10.8 million people who are already in the country illegally, an idea opposed by many conservatives.

Under the proposal, illegal immigrants currently in the United States would be eligible for legal status in eight years, as long as they learned English, had not committed a crime and paid their taxes. The federal government would increase funding for border security and require all American workers get a new version of their Social Security card that would include a biometric identifier to protect against the creation of counterfeits. 

Hey look, it's the REAL ID act again.  Interesting.  Republicans thought that was a great idea back when Bush was President.  Undoubtedly now that Obama's in charge they'll call it fascist.  That's a post for another time, however.  Today, the AP's Suzanne Gamboa is saying that immigration reform is dead, and Obama is the one killing it.

Immigration reform has become the first of President Barack Obama's major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment. Sounding the death knell was Obama himself.

The president noted that lawmakers may lack the "appetite" to take on immigration while many of them are up for re-election and while another big legislative issue — climate change — is already on their plate.

"I don't want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn't solve the problem," Obama told reporters Wednesday night aboard Air Force One.

Immigration reform was an issue Obama promised Latino groups that he would take up in his first year in office. But several hard realities — a tanked economy, a crowded agenda, election-year politics and lack of political will — led to so much foot-dragging in Congress that, ultimately, Obama decided to set the issue aside.

Set it aside?  Did Gamboa not read any of the news out of Congress on immigration yesterday?  Obama was saying that Congress may not have the guts to take this on, but apparently he was wrong.  Congress does seem eager indeed to tackle this.  They wouldn't have responded to his Wednesday night interview with yesterday's plan otherwise.

It's not a death knell.  The people saying that there's no chance of passing this are Republicans, not Democrats.  Gamboa's story is classic Village mendaciousness.