The economic downturn may have pushed immigration reforms down the ladder of concern, but the Obama administration's policies will bring a positive change, a panel of immigration experts said at a seminar at the University of Southern California last Thursday.

The change, however, will be difficult without the efforts of community organizations and the media, which will have to stop resorting to stereotypical news coverage, the panelists said.

Immigration is a complex issue, involving different interest groups, said panelist Sara Sadhwani, immigrant rights project director for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

Sadhwani said that while legalization is one of the biggest concerns of the Latino and Asian community, other groups are interested in the guest worker program, while churches and human rights organizations are interested in refugee issues.

"We hope this administration will infuse within the White House the need for discussion of immigration reform," added panelist Harry Pachon, president of USC's Tomás Rivera Policy Institute. "But the key is to take a step back. Instead of advocating a blanket immigration reform, we should deal with one issue at a time."

The experts said one of the best ways for the Obama administration to boost trust in the immigrant community is to do away with some of the enforcement policies that came about after 9/11, the most important among them being the Patriot Act and the formation of departments like Homeland Security.

Though centrists like Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, surround Obama in his Cabinet, the panel said appointments of people like Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Munoz were a step in the right direction.

Panelist Reshma Shamasunder, director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, expressed concern that Napolitano, in a recent interview with National Public Radio, had spoken extensively about border enforcement, much like the Bush administration. "The first thing immigration advocates want to stop is the raids, which only breed fear," she said. "During his campaign, Obama talked about reviewing the raids, but so far, he has done nothing."

Through the transition period, Obama presented a blueprint with recommendations for legislation and regulatory measures that can improve the situation, but the panelists said there is still a need to build a momentum from the grassroots level. Without a groundswell of community organizations and coalitions, it is not possible to bring about immigration reform, the panelists agreed.

The panel also emphasized the need to include groups other than Latinos in the immigration debate. "It's as much an issue for Asian American and Pacific Islanders, but media coverage of immigration almost always shows images of people scaling the wall between the U.S. and Mexico, which portrays it almost exclusively as a Latino issue," said Sadhwani.

Sadhwani said certain key issues are common to immigrant groups, the most important being family. Reduction of immigration backlogs, which are sometimes as long as 15-20 years, is another key issue, as is integration.

Shamasunder also noted that the media determined to a large extent how the issue was viewed by the country and the world. "So far there has been no real coverage of the underlying policies or the complexities associated with immigration issues. People support legalization, but there is a lot of misinformation. We need a broad range of spokespersons to discuss our immigration system, which needs changes," she said.

One of the things to watch is to see if the Obama administration works to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or the DREAM Act, which the panel said they hoped would be passed by 2010.

Obama expressed support for the DREAM Act while he was campaigning for president. If signed into law, the act would give undocumented students the same opportunity as every other high school graduate to receive federal and state financial aid, and it would open a path towards citizenship for these students. Currently, children who immigrate to the United States from another country can only obtain permanent status through their parents; there is no independent method to accomplish this.

"When Obama was running for office, he spoke about the importance of this act and student movements, especially in California, could finally make this act come true," Sadhwani said.

The talk, titled "New President, New Immigrants, New Points of View -- what the new administration means for comprehensive immigration reform," was held at USC's Doheny Library.