luisgutierrez
Youth Activists Shake Up Congress, but Reform Still a DREAM
originally posted by Julianne Hing for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 27th
DREAM Act advocates are spending the summer turning up the heat on Congress to pass what many consider to be the easiest political sell of the immigration reform proposals circulating in the Beltway. Last week, hundreds of young activists staged a mock graduation ceremony in Washington, D.C., and another 21, many of them undocumented, were arrested after staging a sit-in in Democratic and Republican congressional offices. Meanwhile, four activists have been on a hunger strike since Friday in front of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Los Angeles offices to demand the bill’s passage.
The DREAM Act would create avenues for young people who are undocumented to win legal status. Under the bill, those with a clean criminal record who came to the country before they were 16 years old, have graduated from high school and complete two years of military service or college would be eligible for citizenship. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the bill could benefit about 825,000 people.
These days, no matter what Democrats might say, comprehensive immigration reform is but a dying glimmer on the horizon. Young people pushing for the DREAM Act have long known that, and have been stepping up their actions in recent months as a result.
But not everyone appreciates their aggressive and public tactics. The DREAM Act online organizing clearinghouse DreamActivist.org released a recording of a phone call that took place last week between protesters in Sen. Harry Reid’s office and Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Gutierrez remains one of the last congressional voices who still has hope for comprehensive immigration reform this congressional session.
Gutierrez scolded the activists for demanding the DREAM Act be pushed independently from the broader immigration reform package:
Every time someone says the whole thing cannot pass, only part of it, it weakens us, it divides us, it confuses us, it scatters us all over the place. We once had a united movement for comprehensive immigration reform. Now we don’t have a united movement, and that is causing, that is detrimental to the movement for all of us.
It’s a tense, emotional phone call, but not an unusual conversation among immigration activists long used to hearing promises, followed by foot-dragging and delays, that rarely lead to action. Mainstream immigrant rights groups in the Beltway have often joined Democrats in discouraging the DREAMers and others who are pushing for a piecemeal approach to reform.
The DREAM Act has won strong bipartisan support in the past, but even those who still support it have softened. Even the bill’s author, Sen. Dick Durbin, claims he’s still holding out hope for comprehensive reform–leaving the bill with a steep climb as a stand-alone effort. Meanwhile, anything that resembles the forbidden “amnesty” is dangerous territory for both parties.
Two days after the 21 young activists were arrested in the lobby of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office, he indicated that he might push the DREAM Act forward if a comprehensive reform bill weren’t possible. He reiterated that message to La Opinion, saying, “I would like to figure out when can we do the DREAM Act. I would like to do it before the elections,” if comprehensive immigration reform failed.
But by the time Reid made it to Las Vegas this weekend for the Netroots Nation conference for progressive bloggers, BeyondChron.com reported that he’d once again changed his mind on immigration reform: “I’m not going to do the DREAM Act if I don’t have 60 votes.”
Photo: Creative Commons/DreamActivist
Washington’s War of Words Over Immigration Heats Up
Apr 21st
After days of blistering criticism from Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, both the White House and Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership pushed back yesterday on immigration reform, insisting the process is moving along. White House spokesperson Bill Burton told Roll Call that the administration is still working on a bipartisan bill and expects immigration reform “will be addressed very soon.”
The statement came after Wall Street Journal reported President Obama called Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown yesterday to lobby for his support on a bipartisan bill, presumably the enforcement-heavy bill Sens. Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham have been working on for months. Graham has said health care reform soured him on working with Democrats on immigration. Majority Leader Harry Reid, who’s failing reelection campaign has prompted him to thrash around on the topic, told local reporters that Democrats need to look beyond Graham to moderate Republicans like Brown. But WSJ’s report doesn’t make Obama’s outreach sound promising:
“He called me originally about illegal immigration, something that he wanted me to look at that was coming down the pike,” Brown says of the call, which also roamed onto other topics like basketball and financial regulation. “I told him and others that I will read anything and make a judgment when it comes forth.”
Alluding to the issue a few minutes later, Brown clarified what he told Obama. “When I said I have an open mind, it means I have an open mind to read the bill,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that I will vote for granting amnesty to anyone. But I want to be respectful to the president and to any member who brings me a proposal.”
Meanwhile, Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership has rushed to the Democrats’ defense.
CHC Chair Rep. Nydia Velazquez told Roll Call, “I think the president understands the importance of this issue not only from a human perspective, but also its fundamental importance to the Latino community.” Vice chair Rep. Charlie Gonzalez insisted Obama has “kept his word” and that political realities — presumably the Democrats’ loss of a 60th vote — mean “the lift has been made a little heavier for everyone.”
Gutierrez has argued loudly in recent days that Obama is ignoring his campaign vow to Latinos and has suggested that failure will drive Latino voters to “refuse to participate” in the November elections.
Meanwhile, Graham’s cold feet on a bipartisan bill haven’t kept him out of the far right’s line of fire. The rabidly anti-immigrant group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) has launched a campaign professing to out Graham as gay. In a speech to a Tea Party rally — which is making the web rounds via YouTube — the group’s leader, William Gheen, speculated that Graham’s being blackmailed into participating in immigration reform because of his “secret.” “I need to figure out why you’re trying to sell out your own countrymen and I need to make sure you being gay isn’t it,” Gheen said.
Seems the debate’s off to a civil start.
Gutierrez Rattles Election Saber at Obama Over Immigration
Apr 20th
Rep. Luis Gutierrez is pissed. The Chicago Democrat and Congressional Hispanic Caucus immigration task force chair was once one of President Obama’s loudest Latino advocates. No longer. Here’s what he had to say about the November elections in today’s The Hill: “We can stay home. … We can say, ‘You know what? There is a third option: We can refuse to participate.’ ”
Gutierrez is tired of waiting for the administration to act on immigration reform. In a weekend HuffPo column, he pointedly tied Arizona’s draconian new racial-profiling law to Obama’s failed leadership on immigration. Now, in a lengthy The Hill profile, Gutierrez speaks at length about the need for an “escalation” in activism.
“We’re going to make it uncomfortable for the Democratic Party,” Gutierrez said, adding that immigration advocates would step up the pressure by drawing lessons from the movements for civil rights and women’s suffrage. “There’ll probably be civil disobedience. There will probably be a number of different actions. What we have to do is we have to break through this wall of silence, because we’re invisible.”
Gutierrez is not alone. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), a CHC member who serves in the Democratic leadership, said earlier this month that Latinos view the president with “suspicion” for failing to meet expectations.
Gutierrez notes as well that Obama’s rhetoric has shifted meaningfully on immigration. During the campaign, he used the term “undocumented workers;” by the time health care debate heated up he was saying “illegal immigrants” wouldn’t be covered.
Michelle: Congress, not Prez to Blame for Slow Immigration Reform
Apr 19th
First Lady Michelle Obama told Univision in Mexico yesterday that the administration hasn’t moved immigration reform to the front burner, as promised, because Congress is too divided. As The Hill reports, Obama argued,
“[W]hat we all have to understand in the United States, in Mexico and around the world is that the president needs the support of two parties of Congress to get major reform done,” the first lady said.
“We saw the challenges that take place with just getting healthcare reform so there are real challenges ahead,” she continued, “but I know that my husband is committed and understands that a comprehensive and smart immigration reform policy is going to benefit the United States and Mexico and other countries around the world.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ immigration task force, pointedly disagrees with this perspective. Gutierrez argues that Arizona’s new law mandating local cops check immigration status of people suspected of being undocumented — effectively making racial profiling of Latinos state law — and a massive federal raid in the state Friday offer “a horrifying glimpse at what our future holds across the country if we continue down the path the Obama administration is leading us on immigration.”
In a weekend HuffPo op-ed, Gutierrez went on to write,
President Obama, who promised immigration reform but has failed to make it a priority or use his office to make good on his campaign promises, is now able to see what lies ahead. The Obama administration has escalated mass deportation as our singular approach to immigrants and this has combined in Arizona with anti-immigrant hysteria that is festering to the point that state and local elected opportunists are taking matters into their own hands – with complete federal acquiescence.
[snip]
At a minimum, the President has failed to put his heart into reforming immigration. He has dropped the ball in the first year of his presidency and as we head into election season in his second year, we are seeing more of the same. Unless the President acts forcefully in the coming weeks to drive the immigration reform issue forward, we are going to see a lot more of the devastation we are seeing in Arizona this week.
I know the President knows what we need to do. We need comprehensive immigration reform to diffuse the crisis we are facing. We need the federal government to assert their supremacy over the immigration issue and make it clear to state legislatures, cowboy cops, and the American people that the federal government is in charge and effectively enforcing and regulating immigration. We need legal immigration as an alternative to illegal immigration and a way of getting the millions of unauthorized immigrants already here to get legal and get in compliance with our laws.
The President knows what we must do, but he alone must summon the political will in Washington to do it. The short-run calculations of politics are deeply rooted and hard to overcome, but as we saw in the health care debate, he can do it if he wants to. He needs to stop appeasing those who embrace the persistent fantasy of mass deportation or the delusion that by making America so hostile and uninviting, tens of millions of immigrants will deport themselves. Obama the President needs to stand up for what Obama the candidate and what Obama the Senator and what Obama the Chicago community organizer stood for and lead the Congress towards reform.