Obama to face immigration pressure

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will soon be facing political pressure from both sides of the illegal immigration controversy, activists say.

With his election victory partly due to overwhelming support from Latino voters, those who favor establishing a path to legal residency for the country's 12 million illegal immigrants will be expecting some payback, The Boston Globe reported Monday.

"We voted in large numbers for Obama," Juan Salgado, board president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, told the newspaper. "If we're sitting here 2 1/2 years from now and absolutely nothing's been done, people are going to start asking questions."

Opponents, however, told the newspaper they will be pressing to clamp down on efforts to build residency pathways for illegal immigrants when jobs are getting harder to find for everyone.

"We're going to be fighting like crazy to keep (immigration reform) off the floor" in Congress, said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group favoring immigration controls. "Now is not the time to be talking about this."

Some analysts doubt if Obama will be able to accomplish much on immigration while also confronting the plunging economy, the Globe said.