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Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)

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Presidential Race

Analyzing the White House Candidates’ Positions on Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)

Barack Obama

Following is a summary of the candidate’s immigration position as listed on his web site.

Obama’s Position: Comprehensive Reform in Year One

Senator Obama’s campaign web site lists five goals for immigration reform: “create secure borders; improve the immigration system; remove incentives to come illegally; bring people out of the shadows; and work with Mexico.”  The site highlights his support for sending extra personnel and resources to the border; fixing the “dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy”; increasing legal immigration in order to “keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill”; cracking down on employers who break immigration laws; and helping promote economic development in Mexico “to decrease illegal immigration.”  Senator Obama would address the status of undocumented workers by “allowing undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.” 

Senator Obama’s web site references the Bush Administration’s recent strategy of aggressive immigration raids at worksites across the country.  He calls these raids “ineffective” and says that they have “placed all the burdens of a broken system onto immigrant families.”

A fact sheet on the candidate’s web site expands on some of these principles. In his public comments at multiple events, Senator Obama has committed to making comprehensive immigration reform a priority in his first year in office.