The challenge ahead for pro-migrant folks

It's been an unusually long 10 days since Barack Obama got elected into the highest office in the land, and the prospects for immigration reform are a central discussion in many circles. While some point to the victories in Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico as a turning point where the Latino electorate showed its might, others are more skeptical about the potential disgrudgement that immigration reform could bring to working-class nationalists and the newly found "Obama Republicans".
Time has an interesting piece as the cover story this week, in which it delineates the new ruling majority that Barack Obama could transform into a long-lasting powerful coalition in Washington. Unfortunately, it does not bear good news for people like me, who see U.S. presidential elections for its global impact, rather than simply its domestic significance.

The biggest potential land mine in the Obama coalition isn't the culture war or foreign policy; it's nationalism. On a range of issues, from global warming to immigration to trade to torture, college-educated liberals want to integrate more deeply America's economy, society and values with the rest of the world's. They want to make it easier for people and goods to legally cross America's borders, and they want global rules that govern how much America can pollute the atmosphere and how it conducts the war on terrorism. They believe that ceding some sovereignty is essential to making America prosperous, decent and safe. When it comes to free trade, immigration and multilateralism, though, downscale Democrats are more skeptical. In the future, the old struggle between freedom and order may play itself out on a global scale, as liberal internationalists try to establish new rules for a more interconnected planet and working-class nationalists protest that foreign bureaucrats threaten America's freedom.

Welcome, DREAM Act advocates. Now that you know you are a foreign bureaucrat, what do you do?