President Barack Obama has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to review its practices to see if U.S. immigration laws can be enforced more humanely, according to the White House.

“The president emphasized his deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system,” the White House said in a statement after Obama met last night with the chairman and two other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

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Obama’s move comes amid pressure from advocates for undocumented immigrants who are calling on his administration to change policies that lead to about 1,000 deportations a day, more than under any previous U.S. president.

There were 1.93 million forced departures during Obama’s first five years in office, almost as many as the eight-year total under former President George W. Bush.

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The advocates for undocumented immigrants say the administration’s deportation policies are too aggressive and fracture families.

Republican critics of Obama, though, say he is too lax in enforcing immigration laws and securing the U.S. border. Halting deportations “would further poison the well” for Obama in his dealings with Republicans, Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican on the House Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee, said in an interview last month.

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Churches and labor groups including the AFL-CIO say that Obama could build favor among Hispanic voters for fellow Democrats before the November midterm congressional elections by easing deportations, as he did before his 2012 re-election.

‘Inventory’ Ordered

At last night’s meeting, Obama told the Hispanic lawmakers that Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson would “do an inventory of the Department’s current practices to see how it can conduct enforcement more humanely within the confines of the law,” the White House statement said.

Obama has pushed for revisions to immigration law that would include creating a path to citizenship for undocumented residents. That effort has stalled in the Republican-controlled House.

Representatives Ruben Hinojosa of Texas, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, and Xavier Becerra of California, all Democrats, attended the White House meeting and also discussed with Obama efforts to pressure Republicans to change course and pass immigration legislation this year. Hinojosa is the current chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Gutierrez, who has been a leader in the push to ease deportations, said after the meeting “it is clear that pleas from the community got through to the president.”

Expressing ‘Heartbreak’

In a statement, he said the Hispanic caucus ” will work with him to keep families together. The president clearly expressed the heartbreak he feels because of the devastating effect that deportations have on families.”

Gutierrez also said he and Obama agreed “that the ultimate solution and responsibility for fixing our broken immigration system rests with the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and we will work together to demand Republicans take action.”

The Senate passed a measure revamping immigration law last year. House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, has ruled out action on a broad bill such as the Senate’s, though, saying a piecemeal approach addressing specific issues is the better way to go.

Boehner and Obama met at the White House last month and discussed the administration’s call for immigration policy changes.

Union Effort

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said March 11 that the labor group has identified “nine or ten” Republicans that leaders see as most likely to work with Democrats to force Republican leaders to allow a vote on legislation allowing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

While it’s rare for House lawmakers to buck their party’s leadership and help force a vote with the chamber’s minority, Trumka said union members will target as many as 17 Republicans who might be swayed — and if they won’t it will become an election issue.

The leader of a Los Angeles-based group advocating for day laborers, who are often undocumented immigrants, reacted to last night’s meeting by saying Obama “has no excuse to continue his unjust deportation policy.”

Pablo Alvarado, head of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said in a statement that “the Congressional Hispanic Caucus should not delay joining what is now a consensus position that the president can and should suspend deportations.”

He also said, “It is clear that the House of Representatives is held hostage by a vigilante wing of the Republican Party.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net Michael Shepard, Don Frederick

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• Immigration Issues
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AURORA, Colo. (AP) — If the apparent slow death of immigration legislation has any political repercussions this year, they probably will be felt in the subdivisions, shopping centers and ethnic eateries wrapped around Denver’s southern end.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman represents this fast-changing district.

He’s among a few vulnerable Republican members in line to be targeted by immigrant rights advocates if the House doesn’t pass an immigration bill before the November election that would offer legal status to millions of people who entered the U.S. illegally or overstayed their visas.

The issue is no easy solution for Democrats needing to gain 17 seats to win back the House majority. Democratic campaign officials are focusing on about two dozen GOP-held seats where immigration could be a factor, but they rank only nine in the top tier of possible pickups.

Immigration advocates acknowledge their impact on House races this year is limited. Most Republicans hold safe seats in districts with relatively low numbers of immigrants. Coffman is one of the most vulnerable incumbents, but the three-term lawmaker’s shift on the issue illustrates the difficulties Democrats may have.

Coffman was elected in 2008 to succeed immigration firebrand Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. Coffman endorsed Tancredo in the 2010 governor’s race, which he lost, and initially backed measures such as barring U.S. citizenship to children whose parents were in the country without legal permission. Coffman also supported allowing English-only ballots in districts with large immigrant populations.

But his district was redrawn to include immigrant-heavy Aurora. After seeing fast-growing Hispanic and Asian populations overwhelmingly back Democrats in 2012, Coffman embraced citizenship for people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. He announced his new position in Spanish.

Coffman stopped short of backing a broader proposal to legalize more of the people in the country illegally, but he was one of the few House Republicans at a recent party meeting in Maryland to urge his colleagues to pursue an immigration bill.

Seeing major divisions within the GOP and saying that Republicans don’t trust President Barack Obama to enforce the law, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said last month that immigration legislation is unlikely to reach the House floor until after the election.

“The fact that immigration reform has disappeared kind of takes it off the table,” said Floyd Ciruli, a nonpartisan Denver-based pollster. Coffman “is doing everything he can to make it a less salient issue,” Ciruli said.

Obama took Coffman’s district by 5 percentage points in 2012, while Coffman by only 2 points. One-fifth of the congressman’s constituents are Hispanic, 10 percent are black, and political registration is evenly divided among Democrats, Republicans and independents.

“I’m still working for immigration reform,” Coffman said in an interview.

Coffman says his change of heart on immigration dates from discussions with young people in the country illegally who cannot join the military or go to college.

“I really believe that the strongest expression of American citizenship is serving this country in uniform,” said Coffman, a Marine Corps and Army veteran. He’s proposed granting citizenship to any young person here illegally who enlists.

In addition to studying Spanish, Coffman has also spent time in his district’s numerous other immigrant communities. Last month he visited an Ethiopian church. But he says he does not support an immigration bill passed by the Senate and prefers more steps to ensure the border is secure before granting legal status.

Some who question his sincerity note that last year Coffman voted to end Obama’s policy of granting work permits to people brought to the country illegally when they were young. The step could have led to deporting some of the people Coffman wants to aid in his military bill. Coffman said he objected to Obama’s putting the program in place on his own, and that he preferred Congress act.

“He’s saying the right things and we welcome that,” said Jesus Altamirano of the National Council of La Raza. “But he’s telling us one thing and voting another.”

Coffman remains a member of the Immigration Reform Caucus, a group founded by Tancredo that is steered by Republican congressmen who have been vocal opponents of letting those in the country illegally gain citizenship.

Support for a path to citizenship for those in the U.S. illegally is popular in Colorado. A recent poll showed 59 percent of the state’s voters back it.

Republicans in other high-immigrant districts might be even more vulnerable. In California, U.S. Reps. Jeff Denham and David Valadao have signed on to a Democratic resolution urging House passage of the Senate’s immigration bill. Denham announced his support on Spanish-language television.

Frank Sharry of the Washington-based immigration advocacy group America’s Voice said the issue will be more formidable in 2016, when the presidential election is expected to bring out more Hispanic voters and there will be a clearer contrast on the issue.

But Sharry said that Republicans like Coffman are fair game. The message to immigrant and Hispanic voters, Sharry said, will be: “He’s ineffective. He can’t get his party to stop screwing you.”

Izzy Santa of the Republican National Committee scoffed at the notion that immigration could be used against Coffman and others. “They’re the members who are trying to move the issue forward,” Santa said.

Republicans are going after Coffman’s Democratic challenger, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, on the issue.

The National Republican Congressional Committee released a Web ad last year chiding Romanoff for helping pass legislation in 2006 that Democrats boasted was the toughest package against illegal immigration in the country. The proposals barred people here illegally from receiving nonemergency benefits, and were criticized by some Republicans for not being stringent enough.

Democrats are frustrated at the attack. They say Romanoff has long supported immigration reform.

___

Follow Nicholas Riccardi on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi.

• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• Mike Coffman
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• Barack Obama
• immigration bill

London (AFP) – The coalition government is bitterly divided over immigration after the Conservative minister in charge of the issue accused Business Secretary Vince Cable from the Liberal Democrats of asserting “falsehoods” about the impact of immigrant labour.

The row between Immigration Minister James Brokenshire and Cable erupted Thursday as an official government study concluded there was “relatively little evidence” that migrant workers had taken the jobs of Britons when the economy was strong.

The review said there was evidence of “some labour market displacement” during the recession.

But it also found there was little evidence that immigrants from the European Union had an impact on the employment of British workers, although it was a “relatively recent phenomenon” and “this does not imply that impacts do not occur in some circumstances”.

- ‘Intensely relaxed’ -

Cable on Thursday told business leaders he was “intensely relaxed” about mass immigration and condemned “scare stories” about the issue.

“The free movement of goods, services and labour is good,” he told guests at London’s Mansion House trade and industry dinner.

“I am intensely relaxed about people coming to work and study here and bringing necessary skills to Britain,” he added, citing the Rothschilds, Warburgs and Cazenoves as examples of immigrants vital to the creation Britain’s financial sector.

The minister admitted that abuses of the system needed to be dealt with, but complained that those pointing out the positives of immigrants “need a tin hat and a gas mask”.

“We just have to stop treating people coming to work here as if they are a problem,” he explained. “We need to kill the scare stories.

“Business cannot understand why outstanding Chinese and Indian students who graduate from British universities with valuable skills can’t stay on and pursue their careers in British business.”

Brokenshire, making his first speech as immigration minister, attacked Cable’s views and said the number of recent arrivals from the European Union was “just too high”.

“Mass immigration puts pressure on social cohesion, on public services and infrastructure and — yes — it can force down wages and displace local people from the job market,” he said.

“The winners are the haves like Vince, but the people who lose out are from working class families, they’re ethnic minorities and recent immigrants themselves.”

Brokenshire’s stance was viewed as an attempt to attract working-class voters who are being wooed by the anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Conservative ministers have frequently cited research from 2012 by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) covering the period from 1995 to 2010 that found 23 British workers were left unemployed for every 100 new arrivals from outside the EU.

But the new analysis stated that when data from the recession years of 2009 and 2010 was omitted, the impact of non-EU migration was not “statistically significant”.

Brokenshire’s predecessor as immigration minister, Mark Harper, was forced to resign after he discovered his cleaner did not have permission to work in Britain.

• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues