Non-partisan polls and studies are on the side of immigration reform. But can we translate that into legislative victories this year? That is the million dollar question and there are no straight-forward answers.

New polling from the NY Times/CBS shows that two-thirds of Americans support giving legal status to undocumented immigrants, with 44% supporting a path to citizenship.

The numbers from ABC News / Washington Post are more telling:

Millions of undocumented immigrants are currently living and working in this country under constant threat of detention and deportation, cut off from public services and worst hit by the recession. Granting them a legal status serves to mitigate the effects of having an army of easily-exploited workers on the overall labor market and benefit the entire American workforce. This is why labor unions and leading and even conservative economists like Alan Greenspan support immigration reform.

What immigration reform lacks is strong leadership from the President. Instead of taking swift action, he feels comfortable building more consensus and footing the mammoth task to Congress. In the House, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus along with Nancy Pelosi, holds the DREAM Act hostage till the time comes to debate comprehensive immigration reform. The comprehensive effort might shoot itself in the foot as Out4Immigration and other groups rally to put UAFA–the same sex binational couples bill–on the same plate as border enforcement, e-verify and a path to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants. And why not? When we speak about family unity, we must also consider our LGBT families.

Agjobs, a guest-worker program and dealing with the H-1 program seems more contentious. Durbin and Grassley have introduced legislation to protect American jobs and workers from foreign competition and Senator Durbin is not likely to consider any expansion to the H-1, L-1 system without the DREAM Act as a compromise.

In a Washington Post opinion piece, E. J. Dionne Jr does a good job in telling us where to focus:

The success of immigration reformers will ultimately depend upon winning over those in the ambivalent middle and not treating them as either xenophobes or racists.

The core argument for reform must be that the presence of so many illegal migrants without any enforceable rights undermines the rights of everyone else. The real message that a path to citizenship will send is that all long-term residents of our country should be able to assume their responsibilities as Americans.

Moving us in that direction is not about doing favors for illegal immigrants. It’s about strengthening the American community. Obama needs to use the time he is buying himself to make that case.

Check out the resources section for talking points and advocacy kits for the DREAM Act and immigration reform.