The new administration cannot be expected to act on immigration anytime soon (after all, the economy is tanking and there’s a war on), but it has laid out an agenda for immigration reform in the future.

From change.gov, the transition team’s website:

• Obama and Biden want to preserve the integrity of our borders. They support additional personnel, infrastructure and technology on the border and at our ports of entry.
• Obama and Biden believe we must fix the dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy and increase the number of legal immigrants to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill.
• Obama and Biden will remove incentives to enter the country illegally by cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants.
• Obama and Biden support a system that allows 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.
• Obama and Biden believe we need to do more to promote economic development in Mexico to decrease illegal immigration.

Essentially, this is the same plan that John McCain and George Bush supported until 2007 and congressional Republicans opposed. With the Democrats dominating Congress for at least the next two years, comprehensive immigration reform may have a chance. Will John McCain reverse his position and support it again?

(Photo: change.gov)