NY Daily News columnist asks: Will Obama keep his promises on Immigration Reform?

New York Daily News columnist Albor Ruiz dedicated his latest piece to the gnawing fear many of us in the Latino community have: will President Obama keep his promises to us this time? And it's a question above all  because despite the nice words, mass incarceration, imprisonment and deportation continue unabated.

Here's a taste of Albor's piece, with a link to the entire thing:

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RUIZ: PRESIDENT HAS PROMISED QUICK ACTION ON IMMIGRATION REFORM, BUT HE HAS NOT DELIVERED.

Obama has the power to sign an executive order halting deportations of immigrants with no criminal records, but despite persistent demands from immigrant advocates, he has not done so.


"Obama: Stop all deportations — Humane legalization now.” “Estamos con ustedes, no pierdan la esperanza (We are with you, don’t lose hope).”

Those were the messages painted on two banners spread on a building across from the detention center in Los Angeles last Wednesday. They faced the windows of the cells where hundreds of undocumented immigrants are being held. And they were a powerful denunciation of the sad disconnect between the President’s words and his actions.
That’s why, at the risk of being called a party pooper, I am not joining just yet the conga line dancing to the immigration reform tune.

“I’m here today because the time has come for common sense, comprehensive immigration reform,” Obama said Monday in Las Vegas. “The time is now.”

We couldn’t agree more.

The problem is that immigrants have heard similar words many times before and what they got instead was a record number of deportations that left thousands of families torn apart.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/albor-ruiz-obama-dragging-feet-immigration-reform-article-1.1252733#ixzz2L2QBzZCD

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Full disclosure: I've known Albor since the 1970s, when we were in the same circles of young adults, most of us 20-something, who had been born in Cuba and whose parents had brought us out of the country as children due to the revolution and now were anxious to re-establish a connection with the island.

I left New York in 1984 and I don't think I've seen him since, but in the past few years we've been in touch through the Internet.