{"id":549,"date":"2009-04-19T12:58:40","date_gmt":"2009-04-19T12:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/04\/obama-and-immigration-reform.html"},"modified":"2009-04-19T12:58:40","modified_gmt":"2009-04-19T12:58:40","slug":"obama-and-immigration-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/obama-and-immigration-reform.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama and immigration reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guest post by Lauren Bulfin.<\/em>
\nFriends of mine who have followed Obama\u2019s misadventures with the economic stimulus package, have taken to asking me: \u201cHow is Obama different from any other president we\u2019ve had? I thought he was about change.\u201d
\nI haven\u2019t really had a satisfactory answer for that, other than to say Obama is giving into the pragmatics of politics rather than letting his high-minded ideals stop him from getting things done. But an article in the New York Times on April 10, \u201cObama to Push Immigration Bill as One Priority,\u201d<\/a> has left me with an answer I\u2019d rather believe: Obama is different from other presidents.
\n
\n12 million people reside illegally in our country. They form their own shadow class: denied many basic rights and all but the most menial, back-breaking of jobs. The threat of deportation makes them easily exploitable. In college, I had an internship that involved organizing with undocumented workers. I also had an on and off relationship with a man who was undocumented for three and a half years. It\u2019s different when you get to know, really know, people from second and third world countries. I have come to view immigration reform as a personal, rather than political issue.
\nObama\u2019s bill would put these 12 million people on the path to legalization in the midst of an economic crisis that has American workers hurting. (It also contains draconian elements, such as civil penalties and increased border enforcement, without which the bill would almost certainly fail). The timing of the bill is such that even proponents of the issue have called the move \u201cpolitically disastrous.\u201d It has the potential to weigh down his entire domestic agenda. If I were an activist \u2013 and I have worked with activists on this issue\u2014I would not act at this time, as deeply as I care about this issue.
\nAnd that\u2019s why I admire Obama for doing so. In my blog post \u201cBuddhist for Passover,\u201d I quoted the Four Vows, in which one vows to do things that one has acknowledged to be impossible. These vows have made me reevaluate my path in life as I am reminded that actions are not worth undertaking merely because they are possible. Rather, their merit lies in whether or not they are worth doing.
\nI believe that Obama operates within the latter category. His example has stretched the American public’s belief of what is possible. Before his candidacy, who would have thought that a black man with a Muslim name could get elected to the White House? This is a man who wound up marrying a woman who started out as his boss \u2013 he just kept asking Michelle Obama out until she said “yes.”
\nWhether the bill gets passed or not, I am genuinely touched that our President, who has so many important issues to contend with, has made this issue a priority. Obama is doing something he doesn\u2019t have to do, which might not work but will definitely provoke a vicious reaction from opponents and detract from issues such as health care reform and energy independence. And he\u2019s doing this for the disenfranchised: for our gardeners, our busboys, our day laborers, our babysitters, our maids, and for some, our friends. On this issue, Obama\u2019s intent is in the right place as he works to save sentient beings, 12 million at a time. If my ex-boyfriend had the chance to attend college, I wouldn\u2019t give a damn if Obama continued with illegal wire-tapping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A guest post by Lauren Bulfin. Friends of mine who have followed Obama\u2019s misadventures with the economic stimulus package, have taken to asking me: \u201cHow is Obama different from any other president we\u2019ve had? I thought he was about change.\u201d I haven\u2019t really had a satisfactory answer for that, other than to say Obama is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\nObama and immigration reform - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/obama-and-immigration-reform.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama and immigration reform - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A guest post by Lauren Bulfin. Friends of mine who have followed Obama\u2019s misadventures with the economic stimulus package, have taken to asking me: \u201cHow is Obama different from any other president we\u2019ve had? 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Friends of mine who have followed Obama\u2019s misadventures with the economic stimulus package, have taken to asking me: \u201cHow is Obama different from any other president we\u2019ve had? 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He lives in New York City, where he is also a member of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York. He has undertaken advanced study over the past few years at the Rime Shedra Rime of New York City, the Mipham Academy under Khenpo Gawang, and the Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/gzwahlen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}