2009

Despite a long to-do list, President Barack Obama says he wants to move forward with a plan for comprehensive immigration reform this year. He is expected to speak more extensively on the issue in public later in May, and is expected to assemble a task force this summer to begin discussing possible legislation. Like the bill that failed in Congress in 2007, a new package would likely include a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the U.S., as well as ramped up border enforcement.

But unlike the 2007 attempt, a new proposal isn’t expected to allow additional workers to join the American workforce on a temporary basis. Most labor unions oppose expanding guest-worker programs, and immigrant advocacy groups have agreed to put off such proposals as long as the job market deteriorates. "What is different now is the downturn and rising unemployment," says Alexander Aleinikoff, dean of the Georgetown University Law Center and a member of the Obama transition team's immigration task force. "It will be impossible to push a large-scale temporary worker program."

That will disappoint employers in industries from health care to poultry processing to fruit picking, who say they desperately need workers in spite of rising unemployment. And technology companies like Microsoft (MSFT - News), which has long advocated increasing the number of skilled H-1B visas available in the U.S., say they’re still facing shortages of workers for cloud computing, search, and other emerging areas.

Obama clearly wants to move comprehensive immigration reform forward. But despite his best efforts, it’s doubtful that the President will be able to claim an easy victory on this heated and divisive issue as long as the economy continues to sputter.