Obama, the Dream Act, and skilled migration

President Obama once again called for comprehensive immigration reform in his State of the Union Speech.  He also called on Congress to pass the DREAM act, and made a clear link between it and other high skilled immigrants in the U.S.  Giving visas and green cards to immigrants, both undocumented and documented, is a bipartisan issue, many congressman on both sides of the aisle have said that we should be stapling green cards to the diplomas of immigrant students, particularly those in math, science and engineering.  It's unlikely that we will see progress on any of these fronts during the current presidential campaign, but many actors will be putting themselves in place to take action in early 2013, so expect immigration, particularly skilled immigration, to remain on the agenda for 2012.  It is interesting to note that both Gingrich and Romney would be willing to give visas to illegal immigrant who join the military but not to students.  Romney's "self-deportation" quote has also been bandied about the blogosphere as noted by the Miami Herald:  http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/01/mitt-romneys-self-deportation-comment-got-twitter-hoppin.html