Will illegal immigrants' D.C. sit-in work?

By DENA BUNIS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
dbunis@ocregister.com
July 24, 2010

Bold idealism met with some harsh political realities this week when a group of young people brought to the United States as children took their fight for legal status to the Capitol.

These crusaders for the DREAM Act – an acronym that stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act - say they are weary of living an underground life in the only country most of them have ever known.

An example is Antonia Rivera. She lives in Santa Ana, went to high school in Orange County, graduated from UC Irvine but cannot work because she is undocumented.

Among the estimated 11 million people living here illegally there are about one million in Rivera's category. And their case has a sympathetic ear in Washington.

The DREAM Act was first introduced in 2001 and has always had some Republican support. There were 50 votes in the Senate in 2007 – 38 Democrats and 12 Republicans – but those votes were not enough to bust a filibuster.

The current bill has only one GOP cosponsor, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. The House version has 126 cosponsors including five Republicans.

Republican opponents of the DREAM Act say the law is the law and Congress cannot condone illegal behavior by giving these students a pass.

Beyond that, says Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, these illegal immigrant students could well have taken the place of American citizens who wanted to go to the colleges they went to.

"Whether their parents brought them or not they are criminal aliens,'' said Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa. "This whole irrational compassion for people who are here illegally is hurting our own people and it's causing other people in other countries who want to come here illegally to do so.''

The impatience of these young people like Rivera who at 28 has a degree in journalism but cannot get a legal job, is understandable.

But one has to wonder about their tactics. A group of them sat in the middle of the Hart Senate Office Building on Tuesday. Others parked themselves in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. John McCain's offices.

And still others are staging a hunger strike in front of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's Westwood office.

Some say what these young people are doing is in the great American tradition of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.

There's a difference. Those who marched in Selma and went to jail for equal rights had the U.S. Constitution on their side.

No one is suggesting that these young people have a legal right to be here.

It is true that when Rivera was six-years-old her parents didn't ask her permission to join them in an illegal trek from Mexico to the United States.

But if you want lawmakers to make an exception to a lawful statue and provide a way for you to get legal status, maybe breaking the law in their lobby isn't the greatest idea.

Beyond that, they are in a sense biting the hands that feed them.

After all, Reid and Feinstein both are both cosponsors of the DREAM Act.

The answer, activists say, is that Reid has the power to bring the bill to the floor and Feinstein is a powerful member of the Judiciary Committee with the clout to get it sent to the floor.

All true. Except their tactic still is questionable.

The DREAM Act protesters met with Feinstein's staff this past week and in the past.

In those meetings they not only pushed Feinstein to champion the DREAM Act, they want her to put it ahead of Ag Jobs, a bill Feinstein has been passionately pushing for years.

"American farmers are in the midst of a labor shortage crisis, and crops are rotting in fields because there are not enough workers to harvest them.

Farm workers are the backbone of California's $40 billion agricultural economy, and Senator Feinstein will not support any strategy that leaves behind farm workers and farmers,'' said Feinstein spokesman Gil Duran.

Pitting students against poor farm workers? Not exactly the political thing to do.

Beyond that there's the simple fact that without some Republican support no immigration measure is going anywhere this year.

The GOP believes that it has a good chance to take back the House and /or Senate this year. Why should they hand Democrats a DREAM Act victory that they could tout around the country, a victory that would mobilize Latino voters to come to the polls and help Democrats keep seats that are imperiled – including Reid's in Nevada.

But let's say Minority Leader Mitch McConnell can't make that case to Republicans.

Advocates may not want to pay the price the GOP would put on not filibustering it – adding strong enforcement measures onto the bill.

So Democrats get the DREAM Act passed and about one million young people get on a path to citizenship. But in the bargain, millions of other illegal immigrants – including some of their parents - could end up suffering for it.

That's because those millions would not get the kind of path to legalization included in comprehensive immigration reform, which is what advocates want.

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, who authored the current DREAM Act, has said he plans to include his bill in any comprehensive measure. Reid has said the same thing.

But the majority leader hasn't closed the door on doing DREAM Act separately.

In an interview with La Opinion, Reid said if immigration advocates tell him a comprehensive bill is impossible right now "then I would like to figure out when can we do the DREAM Act. I would like to do it before the elections."

Chances are, however, even if it's just the DREAM Act, Reid would have to put together 60 votes to break an expected filibuster.

Have the recent impassioned demonstrations by DREAM Act activists helped or hurt such a prospect?

We'll be watching.

Bunis is the Register's Washington bureau chief.

Contact the writer: (202) 628-6381 or dbunis@ocregister.com

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