This holiday season in Congress, the Democrats have provided the Republicans with a gift-wrapped opportunity to change their tune on the immigration issue. By bringing the DREAM Act to the floor in both chambers, Democrats have offered up a most sympathetic and deserving cohort of young people for protection from deportation. By staying in school or serving in the military, paying fees and keeping a clean record for more than a decade, certain young people who have already been in the U.S. for 5-29 years could have a chance at legal status and eventually citizenship. Even the most ardent opponents of immigration reform find it hard to stand against these high school graduates, valedictorians, student government leaders, and cheerleaders with American accents, a desire to serve their country, and deep, deep roots in America.
And yet when this legislative olive branch was voted on in the House, only eight Republicans grasped for it. Eight Republicans joined 208 Democrats in approving the measure and moving it towards the Senate. When given the choice between naughty and nice this Christmas, all but eight Republicans -- and 38 Democrats -- chose to be on the naughty list.
Now the Republicans in the Senate face a similar choice. They and a few wavering Democrats have a chance to pick which side of this issue and which side of history they want to defend and with whom they want to stand.
I clearly want them to stand on the side of the U.S. military, university presidents, educators, law enforcement and the Congressional Budget Office. I want Senators to stand on my side along with every major editorial page and the 60-plus percent of the American people who support the DREAM Act in every poll I have read. Most importantly, I want Republicans in the Senate -- and Democrats -- to stand with a generation of young immigrants and the children of immigrants who are struggling to find their place in American history.
And I don't mean just the 800,000 DREAMers themselves who would benefit directly from the bill. I want every Senator to think about the millions of other immigrant and non-immigrant young people who have fought for the bill. Being a graying student activist myself, I see a delightful -- and at times challenging -- spark of hope in the spirit of the young people fighting for this bill, whether it would help them directly or not. It is a remarkable counter-example to the stereotype of Facebook and Game Boy addicted youth who are thought to be apathetic about their nation, her laws, and society at large.
This generation of activists will not soon forget how legislators talked about the DREAM Act and voted on it when given a chance.
With or without the DREAM Act, one important fact will not change about this group. Every year, an estimated 500,000 Latino U.S. citizens turn 18 and therefore become eligible to vote. Add the children and grandchildren of immigrants who identify strongly with their family's immigrant experience and add the naturalized immigrant adults and you have a sizable group of new voters waiting in the wings and stepping up to the ballot box with each passing year. A million more eligible young Latino voters will be in play by the time votes are cast in 2012. In every state of the union, they are becoming the newest voting constituents of every Senator and Congressman. Do you think they will forget who voted for and against the DREAM Act in two years? What about the two million newly eligible voters in four years? Believe me when I tell you they will remember who fought for -- and against -- deporting their sisters, cousins, best friends, boyfriends, and teammates.
That's why you have seen Senators hedging their bets. Senators, especially Republicans that have supported the DREAM Act in the past, have concocted other reasons to stand against the hopes and aspirations of young immigrants. They want to vote on tax cuts first, they said in a letter. Check. They don't want it considered as part of a Defense Bill, even if it mandates a larger recruiting pool. Check. They say a lame duck session is not the right venue for legislating, even after wearing out the sole on a dozen pairs of shoes dragging their feet for two years. The excuses are melting away faster than a DC snowstorm.
And into the vacuum, the hardest core activists opposing the DREAM Act have the floor and present the face of the Republican Party to these voters on the immigration issue. They lump all immigrants in with criminals, keep pointing to Mexico and the border even though the DREAM Act is unrelated, and make wildly inaccurate claims -- sometimes on the floor of the House and Senate -- to stir up opposition to the bill.
Dear Senators, stand with those immigration opponents who defend the deportations and stonewall the DREAM Act if you want to, but you better enjoy it while you can. This generation of immigrants -- like every generation before them in U.S. history -- will become citizens and voters eventually. In the meantime, their neighbors, friends, and families are already citizens and voters and more are reaching voting age each day. They are writing down their naughty and nice lists this Christmas in pen, not pencil, and will remember what you give them this Christmas for a very, very long time.
Follow Rep. Luis Gutierrez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RepGutierrez
Ryan J. Bell: Killing the DREAM Act: Still No Room in the Inn
Mike Lux: Celebration and Mourning on the Same Day
No, they lump all illegal immigrants (the only kind of immigrants the DREAM act applies to) in with criminals, because that's what they are.
So, "changing their tune" involves bending over and agreeing to amnesty? Yeah, ok.
Wow, what a wonderful open immigration policy we have for Latinos. Legal and hard working Latino U.S. citizens are a great asset for the U.S.
If the Dream Act passes we'll probable be condemned for implementing a mercenary army.
every country on earth but Mexico gets a pass, why is that? The government of Mexico doesn't take care of business for its people or we wouldn't be having this conversation and it's about time we
broach the subject.
Semper FI
It's not like we have leaders like Massasoit around anymore who understood that the poor people who arrived on his shores without papers, without languages skills, or the skills to survive are human beings. He denied no children of the undocumented parents who came here from learning how to plant, how to fish, how to hunt or prohibited their ability to provide for their families.
It is that spirit of welcoming and pure Americanism that we celebrate at Thanksgiving.
Massasoit clearly began the tradition of helping out one's neighbor even if he or she was different in many ways. Perhaps it should be stated loudly and clearly that the Pilgrims were the first illegal aliens here. They were the first to receive government assistance via the Wampanoags.
But then again, never confuse the nobility of the Algonquin-speaking peoples to that of Nativists who use their pontifications to build a wall of false perception which can turn normally-kind adults against children.
Yeah. Imagine that. Things were not all sweetness and light here before the white man arrived.
http://www.answers.com/topic/massasoit
To the west, across Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay roved the powerful Narragansett tribe, eager to slaughter both Massasoit and the Wampanoags. To the east, the English, whatever their troubles, were rumored to have valuable trade goods and strange, new, fire-breathing weapons. Caught in the middle, then, between his traditional enemies to the west and the English on the coast to the east, Massasoit may well have thought he had little choice than to throw in his lot with the potentially helpful newcomers.
The same Nativists, who are members of white-nationalist hate group like, (Alipac, FAIR, NumbersUSA et.al.) are coached by their leaders to spam phone lines to their reprisentatives in congress and sent out to different forums and blogs to spew misinformation and lies to block any sort of Immigration reform.
We tell all kids to stay in school, stay out of trouble, but we are like Lucy, who takes away the football from Charlie Brown. Then -- get this, we are shocked at the high rate of Hispanics who drop out of school.
The problem is that unless there is a TRUTHFULL degree of balance in the presentation of immigrant life, hardships, contributions, risks, viewpoints, people end up building an impression fed by words like "illegal," free tuition," and "handouts."
It sounds great. Let's get tough on Mexicans who committed misdemeanors and hold them up to standards for which we do not hold up Europeans who started illegal immigration.
As a society we have let a mass mentality stoked by false perceptions shape our thoughts. We see the Pilgrims as nobles, not illegals, but we see kids of people who have committed a misdemeanor as devils.
But in a time when few but the most well-off of Americans can afford to get into college and those that can frequently already have to compete with people of other nations to get in, is it wise to offer going to college as a short way to citizenship? To offer a bill to offer a college education with full rights of citizenship attached that does absolutely nothing for Americans?
With 10% unemployment and our own citizen college graduates not able to find jobs even if they can go to college, "What's in it for us?" may sound like a selfish question but this concerns something our own people want but are often denied.
This bill failed and perhaps before it is reintroduced as a panacea for wrongs we have done people who brought their families without permission, perhaps the inclusion of something for Americans will make it more palatable to them.
Why not use the Federal student Loan system to offer citizens of this nation 100% financing for their own education at 1% simple interest? Make that it's major feature and publicize it.
Then if education for unregistered foreign children is in it, people not only might not notice; they might not even care. It would be as popular as passing unemployment extensions.
Then why don't they leave?!
"...reintroduced as a panacea for wrongs we have done people who brought their families without permission, perhaps the inclusion of something for Americans will make it more palatable to them..."
No, and No. I fail to see how it's the US Gov'ts' fault that someones mom jumped a fence. I also don't agree -- nor do most americans -- that illegal immigration is palatable, under ANY circumstances. That's why we put the 'illegal' adjective in there, to make that clear.
Much like the 9/11 bill, frankly.
Congress needs to learn to pare down these bills to their essence. Otherwise, you'll never get a true "read", or a truly informed vote on these, and other, important issues.
"and then suggest these younger adults that obviously have "smarts" and ambition have "lazed" their way into an opportunity "
They don't have to suggest it, you just did that for them.
In 2011 we can craft a more logical and strategic plan that will be satisfactory to not all but most and we must hold our representatives accountable to this end so respectfully No on “The Dream Act”.
The FACT is that it is the ordinary Mexican Americans who are being hurt the worst by the flood of illegals. In Del Rio, the local school district asked the BP to stop all the Mexican school kids who were crossing the border every day to go to US schools. They caught almost 400 kids who were actually Mexican citizens who were freeloading off of American schools. By the way, this act would also make these kids eligible for the amnesty too since they would have graduated from a Texas high school, even though they lived in Mexico.
The bill also grants an amnesty once the paperwork has been filed and they cannot be deported for ten years, which in that time frame they can meet the requirements of college or military service. So this means that any person who looks under 30 can claim to have been in the US before they were 16, and graduated or gotten a GED, and they have a free pass for ten years. There is NO requirement for PROOF of either age, or when they were brought here.