Immigration Is Lead Topic as Leaders Are Gathered

New York Times reports that: President Obama told a gathering of business, labor, religious and political leaders at the White House on Tuesday that he remains committed to an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws and wants to try again in the coming months to push Congress to pass a bill. With his re-election campaign launched this month and Latino communities growing increasingly frustrated with his immigration policies, Mr. Obama summoned more than 60 high-profile supporters of the stalled overhaul legislation to a strategy session, looking for ways to revive it. Among those attending were Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, an independent; Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio, a Democrat; and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican. Two big-city police chiefs, Raymond W. Kelly of New York and Charles Ramsey of Philadelphia, were there, as was Sheryl Sandberg, a top executive at Facebook, and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the largest group of evangelical Christians. Prospects for the proposed policy, which would grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants and revamp the immigration system, seem bleak in this Congress, with staunch Republican opponents of the bill controlling pivotal committee positions in the House of Representatives. Recently Latino leaders have stepped up their criticism of Mr. Obama, as deportations have reached record numbers under his administration and he has offered no relief from the crackdown on immigrant communities.