President Obama is wrong to postpone immigration reform. And his own immigration policy is causing concern and dismay among many of those who supported his election.

At the recent North American summit in Mexico, Obama said that immigration reform would have to wait in line behind health care and the economy.

While these issues are understandably urgent, Obama’s stance unfairly deprioritizes the millions of people in this country who have paid their taxes but have not yet been given a path to citizenship, even after many years of living here.

Worse than Obama’s inaction, however, has been his action.

In July, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was expanding a provision (287g) of federal immigration law that empowers local law enforcement agencies to arrest and detain undocumented workers for immigration violations.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who hails from Arizona, where this practice has been notoriously misused, announced 11 new partnerships for the program in police departments throughout the country.

In a time when comprehensive immigration reform is needed to redefine the status of undocumented workers who are crucial to many local economies, the Obama administration instead has chosen to focus on ineffective enforcement policies implemented by the previous administration.

This particular program essentially turns local law enforcement into immigration officers, and transforms local jails into holding pens for the immigration service.

Such power can prompt abuse.

Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in charge of the largest 287g agreement and is under federal investigation for possible constitutional violations and discrimination. He is notorious for confining thousands of detainees in a tent city jail and parading them around in their prison uniforms.

A pregnant woman who was arrested in Tennessee by a 287g-deputized officer subsequently went into labor while shackled to a jail hospital bed, according to “Local Democracy on Ice,” a report issued by the nonprofit research group Justice Strategies.

The policy isn’t good for police, either. At a July 1 meeting in Miami, America’s police chiefs said 287g made police work more difficult because it made undocumented immigrants fearful of any contact with police. An April report issued by the Police Foundation also argued that the costs of the program strained local budgets.

Homeland Security’s announcement of 287g’s expansion mentioned that the program would be revamped so as to focus more closely on criminal illegal aliens and steer away from arresting those unlucky enough to be driving with a broken taillight.

But such promises do not address the primary problem.

We need immigration reform, which would once and for all redefine the status of the majority of hardworking immigrant laborers.

This would eliminate the need for costly expansions of law enforcement programs.

Immigrants and their families have faced more than enough fear and intimidation.

Now they need a path to safety, security and, ultimately, citizenship.

Ed Morales is a contributor to the New York Times and Newsday and is the author of “Living in Spanglish” (St. Martin’s Press, 2002). He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.