DREAMers Won’t Settle For Just The Dream Act
By Elise Foley, Huffington Post Latino Vocies
They settled on a new priority: comprehensive immigration reform that would help the entire undocumented population, not just those who came to the United States as children.
It’s something of a shift for the network, United We Dream, which is made up of smaller groups of undocumented young people nationwide. Although the network has always supported comprehensive reform, its primary focus has been on so-called Dreamers, who came to the United States as children and would be eligible for the Dream Act, a decade-old bill to give legal status to some of those individuals if they attended college or joined the military.
After what they see as two major victories for their effort — President Barack Obama’s June announcement that his administration would grant deferred immigration action on some undocumented young people, and the victory of pro-immigration reform politicians in the November election — the group is expanding its goals.
“[Comprehensive immigration reform] versus the Dream Act, or comprehensive versus piecemeal, is really a false choice,” United We Dream managing director Cristina Jimenez said on a call with reporters Monday. “That’s the way that politicians in D.C. want to frame this debate, but the local leaders of United We Dream have really decided to set our own terms for this debate.”
There’s support for comprehensive immigration reform from the highest levels of the political spectrum, but it will be a difficult sell farther down the line. Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have said major reform will be a priority after the president begins his second term in January. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have already begun bipartisan talks.
House Republicans, though, largely oppose comprehensive immigration reform that gives pathways to citizenship to undocumented immigrants already in the country. Many also argue that a piece-by-piece reform effort is a better path forward.
Dreamers won’t accept a piecemeal approach, United We Dream members said. They want aid for undocumented immigrants in general, and more specific provisions that address driver’s licenses, college tuition and health care for immigrants. They said they will also push for an end to Obama administration-run enforcement programs such as Secure Communities that they…
This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
Elise Foley is a reporter for the Huffington Post in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at The Washington Independent.
[Photo by mdfriendofhillary]