Leah Durant, the Executive Director of Progressives for Immigration Reform, will appear on Lou Dobbs on CNN on Tuesday night to explain new poll numbers showing that liberals are concerned about rising population numbers due to increased immigration. The poll was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC in April.

The poll revealed:

• Sixty seven percent of liberals and progressives felt the level of population growth caused by immigration negatively impacts the quality of life in the United States.
• Fifty eight percent felt that the current levels of immigration are harmful to the environment.
• Sixty three percent said that current levels of immigration hurts job prospects for American workers.
• With regard to undocumented workers already here, the poll revealed that self-identified liberals are split over whether illegal immigrants should be offered an amnesty. Fifty three percent were in support of a pathway to citizenship and forty five percent were opposed.

Roy Beck is executive director and founder of Washington, D.C.-based NumbersUSA, an organization that lobbied against the 2007 version of the DREAM Act and opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Beck said he's sympathetic to Rivera's situation, but added that the DREAM Act is not an appropriate path to citizenship for immigrant children who were brought to this country by undocumented parents.

"You can take a lot of these individuals and you can make a compelling case for their story," Beck said. "If it was just this guy, I've got no problem with this guy being given amnesty. But there are apparently about 500,000 of these people in this country."

Beck said the DREAM Act, as written, contains loopholes that would allow people who receive amnesty under the law to apply to have their family members put on a path toward citizenship.

He said that would lead to massive fraud and open the door to thousands of new immigrants who could pour into the country in order to take advantage of the amnesty provisions in the law.

"When you allow people to break the law, and then allow them to harvest what they broke the law to get, you encourage more illegal activity," Beck said.

“I don’t see it as a kick-off,” said Roy Beck, executive director of Numbers USA, which advocates restricting immigration, referring to the president’s meeting with congressional leaders on Thursday. “I think the fact that they’re bringing in a number of members of Congress who will be defiantly against a comprehensive immigration bill suggests that the purpose of this meeting is more to lay out the broad spectrum that’s there in Congress and show how difficult it will be to put together a majority to pass a bill,” he said. In addition to to the conflict over guest workers, he noted that Schumer, for example, supports a national identification card, while civil liberties groups such as the ACLU oppose that. “It seems the president is giving himself some cover to hold back a little from the Hispanic caucus,” said Beck. “They’re the only members of congress keeping this thing alive.”

Beck emphasized that the last time a comprehensive immigration reform bill including “amnesty” was proposed in Congress with the support of President George W. Bush, it didn’t pass. “Why would members who voted against it in 07 when the economy was strong vote for it now?” he asked.

That's true, but it's also not clear that Obama's vision for overhaul is politically viable. Thursday's meeting will include some lawmakers who are dead set against any legalization, and Roy Beck, of the restrictionist group Numbers USA, believes this could be a good sign.

"By having strong senators and congressmen on the other side of this issue," Beck says, Obama "will be able to say, 'Hey, look, see how hard this is going to be? See how far apart we are?' "

On the other hand, Beck wonders if including both sides means that Obama is really serious about changes in immigration policy, since winning over Republicans is the only way it will happen. Immigrant advocates say the strong Latino vote for Obama last fall also makes it more important that he address the issue. Still, given that new immigration plans failed twice in Congress in recent years, Beck says the safe bet is that the president won't press for much anytime soon.

"He's trying hard to be kind to this lobby, but they're asking him to sort of commit political suicide," Beck says. "And they're saying unless you commit political suicide — 'we're not going to vote for you next time.' Well, that's crazy."

As President Obama vows to refocus Democrats' attention on jobs and the economy, advocates for overhauling the nation's immigration laws say they are still gearing up for a battle in the Senate in coming weeks, despite fading hopes for victory.

Washington's drawn-out health-care debate badly damaged prospects for an immigration bill this winter. It ate up weeks of the Senate's time, sapped progressive lawmakers' energy and, most recently, stoked a populist backlash that cost Democrats the seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), the chamber's most prominent champion of liberal health-care and immigration policies.

With time running out before lawmakers want to start focusing on the November elections, "immigration is deader than a doornail," one veteran Senate lobbyist put it. Advocates' frustration peaked last week when Obama devoted a single sentence in his 71-minute State of the Union address to a topic he ranked as a top legislative priority last summer, after health care and an energy bill.