Mission District residents were skeptical about President Barack Obama's promise late last week to take up a new immigration bill, but said one item remains at the top of their wish list: legalization.

"The most crucial thing is to provide a path to legalization for the 11.5 million undocumented workers who are here," said Ana Pérez, executive director of CARECEN, a resource center for Central-American immigrant families.

Pérez noted that out of all the undocumented people in the United States, almost 75 percent live in families, and of those, 73 percent are mixed status families. That means that in one family, some of the members may be citizens or residents, while others are undocumented.

She also pointed to 287 (g) agreements that authorize state and local law enforcement to perform immigration law enforcement functions. "Local police are increasing the number of arrests ... we're seeing things like people who are getting overcharged or not charged at all, and then being held in jail, with no charges, for even six hours, and then by the time we get to them they already have a deportation hold," she said.

Even in cities without such agreements, "the administration is ... aggressively going through the jails to deport whoever is there that may be undocumented," added Pérez.

Marisela Alvarez, family resource specialist at La Raza Community Resource Center, said she would like to see a law where undocumented workers "were allowed to pay a fine for having entered illegally, and stay in the country," she suggested.