We all knew that if the Dream Act was passed they would demand that all of their relatives be given Amnesty.

By Ruben Navarrette
San Diego Union-Tribune
August 09, 2013 12:00 AM

House Republicans accomplished something that I didn't think was possible. By even acknowledging that they're working on their own version of the DREAM Act, they prompted the DREAMers to rediscover their parents.
Let's not forget that Republicans are the favorite punching bag of immigration reformers - a group that includes some organizations whose interests are served by preserving an impasse that enables them to continue to raise money but also more credible left-wing organizations at the grass roots who are fighting the Obama administration and putting principles before party.
One thing all these groups agree on is that nothing the GOP proposes could be of any value, and so it must be opposed sight unseen. The so-called KIDS Act, a Republican-sponsored bill that would give undocumented young people a pathway to citizenship, hasn't been formally introduced yet. And already Democrats and their supporters have denigrated it as "DREAM Lite" because supposedly it doesn't go far enough.
That's priceless coming from a party that killed the DREAM Act in December 2010, when five Senate Democrats voted against cloture and thus denied proponents a filibuster-proof majority.
Once the decision was made to oppose the KIDS Act simply because it came from Republicans, the DREAMers began saying that the legislation was unfair because it offered legal status to them - those undocumented young people who were brought here involuntarily by their parents, and who aspire to go to college or join the military - but not to their mothers and fathers. The elders would remain vulnerable to being deported by an administration that has shown a knack for removing illegal immigrants and yet still has the support of immigration reformers.
Don't ask me to explain that last part.
La Opinion, the nation's largest Spanish-language newspaper, published an editorial saying that it was "cruel and indecent to think that the young DREAMers would be satisfied with a measure that protects themselves but simultaneously deports their parents."
There are three holes in this argument.
First, as mentioned, it's the gung-ho Obama administration that has deported almost 2 million people in nearly five years. If the DREAMers think that this sort of record is "cruel and indecent," they ought to take a few minutes away from hassling Republicans and go get arrested outside the White House.
Second, until this latest offensive against Republicans, I didn't realize that DREAMers had parents. For the more than 10 years that the term "DREAM Act" has been part of the political lexicon, these undocumented young people have acted like the orphans of the immigration debate. I thought they just walked through this world alone in their caps and gowns, guided by their superior intellect and those "dreams" we always hear about.
Third, this business about how DREAMers would never be satisfied with half a loaf is nonsense. Since when? This is the same bunch that takes a crumb from the Obama administration and declares it a feast. The DREAMers were satisfied last year when President Barack Obama proposed "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" to give young undocumented immigrants a two-year reprieve from deportation and a work permit, but left out their parents. They were satisfied again a couple months ago when the Senate passed its immigration bill giving them an express path to legal status and citizenship, and leaving behind most of their parents who - according to several policy analysts - wouldn't qualify for either under the bill's stringent conditions.
Despite a promise to legalize 11 million, only about 8 million are likely to get legal status under the Senate bill. For instance, if papa ever got a DUI, then papa is probably out of luck.
This willingness by DREAMers to leave behind mom and dad isn't new. After all, where did they get their name? It was from a bill first proposed by Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Orrin Hatch of Utah in August 2001. DREAMers still worship this bill as if it were their Emancipation Proclamation. In truth, it was an elitist piece of legislation that would have done what Republicans are accused of wanting to do now - split families by giving young undocumented immigrants legal status and citizenship while denying those things to their parents.
Some refer to DREAMersas heroes. Yet, given these political games, they're more like hypocrites. They've lost their credibility. Apparently, for the partisans in DREAMland, whether you support something, or oppose it, depends entirely on who is offering.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.d...ews.asp?id=93/