White House Meeting on Immigration Reform Postponed

The White House meeting would have come one week after 800 advocates from across the country visited Washington as part of the launch of the Reform Immigration For America Campaign.

A recent Immigration Rights rally in Salem, Oregon. Salem-News.com photo by Tim King

(SALEM, Ore.) - The White House announced Friday that it would postpone a meeting with a bipartisan group of Congressional Leaders to discuss Immigration Reform.

The meeting, scheduled for June 17th, was announced last month after the Obama administration and Congressional leaders had been signaling their commitment to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.

The White House meeting would have come one week after 800 advocates from across the country visited their congressional representatives as part of the launch of the Reform Immigration For America Campaign.

Allies in Washington D.C. are saying although the White House meeting delay is a mistake, it is not a setback.

Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, issued a statement on behalf of the Reform Immigration FOR America campaign saying, "We think delaying the meeting is a mistake. Momentum is building for comprehensive immigration reform with more and more Americans demanding solutions. The President is too smart not to move on immigration reform this year. We don't see this as a signal that President Obama is stepping back from reform."

With strong public support in polls and hundreds of thousands of calls and faxes into Congressional offices generated by the Reform Immigration for America campaign last week, the lights are green for passage of a Comprehensive Reform bill this year.

"The bipartisan meeting at the White House is very important and needs to happen soon", said Francisco Lopez, Executive Director of CAUSA. "Patience is growing thin in the Latino and Immigrant Communities and President Obama needs to follow through with the commitment he made to more than 10 million Latinos that voted in the last Presidential Election."

Starting Monday, CAUSA will join its allies around the nation in generating calls, faxes and emails in the White House encouraging the bipartisan meeting to go forward.

For more information on the Reform Immigration For America campaign visit, reformimmigrationforamerica.org

Source: CAUSA Oregon's Immigrant Rights Coalition, which is the largest Hispanic civil and human rights and advocacy organization in the Pacific Northwest.