The president’s top immigration adviser, Felicia Escobar, has told immigration advocates that the White House will turn to their issue after the battles on government funding and raising the nation’s debt limit, creating what senior administration officials say is a window of opportunity to make progress on the issue. That’s just in time to harmonize with a series of Oct. 5 events across the country organized under the heading of a day of “dignity and respect” and a Washington lobbying effort by an array of pro-reform activists at the end of the month.

The new push comes as the president faces tremendous pressure from the Latino community, a pivotal voting bloc in his re-election, to spend more of his time and energy prodding the House to act on immigration reform.

“He knows it’s important to keep the fight going,” said former Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who noted that the president ran on enacting an immigration overhaul. “It is still very much a part of his mission and his legacy.”

It’s clear that if Democrats don’t soon show that they’re serious about moving forward on immigration, they risk alienating Latino voters — or, worse for the White House, shifting the ire of activists from House Republicans to the president, who has not used his executive authority to order blanket immunity from deportation for immigrants who came to this country illegally.