Luis Gutierrez Splits With Dreamer Group NIYA
By Roque Planas, Huffington Post Latino Voices
This group of dreamers is pushing too hard for one Latino congressman’s taste.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) distanced himself from the National Immigrant Youth Alliance on Monday, saying the group had secretly recorded his private conversation last week with the parents of detained immigrants. The rift exposes long-simmering tension between Gutierrez and other establishment politicians trying to push immigration reform through a deadlocked Congress, and undocumented activists who have adopted brazen tactics in the face of congressional inaction.
“The Office of Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) will no longer work with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA) and their affiliated advocates at DREAMActivist.org,” Gutierrez spokesman Douglas Rivlin said Monday in a press release.
Rivlin’s statement criticized National Immigrant Youth Alliance’s opposition to comprehensive immigration reform and accused it of “disturbing racism.” Gutierrez’s office combed through social media postings of National Immigrant Youth Alliance activist Mohammad Abdollahi and cited a tweet in which he said he was “limiting my white friends” and a Facebook posting in which he referred to “typical white shit.”
The activists, who had been pressing Gutierrez to support a group of detained migrant workers known as the Dream 30, took credit for recording the conversation, but dismissed Gutierrez’s criticism.
“We haven’t had a working relationship with Gutierrez’s office for about two years now,” Abdollahi told HuffPost. “It’s not accurate to say we’ve had a split. … It’s just ridiculous that they’re resorting to personal attacks instead of defending the community.”
Abdollahi said National Immigrant Youth Alliance favors a piecemeal approach to immigration legislation rather than the comprehensive legislation backed by Gutierrez. “We’ve always been a fan of whatever legislation has a chance of passing,” Abdollahi said.
Members of National Immigrant Youth Alliance visited Gutierrez’s Washington office on Monday and refused to leave unless he called President Barack Obama to ask for the release of Dream 30 activists.
This article was originally published in Huffington Post Latino Vocies.
[Photo by Talk Radio News Service]