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#1
04-25-2012, 10:31 PM
Senior Member
Joined in Sep 2006
3,617 posts
lilbawler2001
Quote:
Gaby Pacheco, a vocal immigrant activist, accepted a tantalizing invitation last week from an unlikely source: Republican Sen. Marco Rubio wanted her to help craft a bill that could legalize the children of some illegal immigrants. Two hours later, Pacheco and other activists got a different pitch from their more familiar White House allies. Be wary of Rubio and his plan, two of President Obama’s top advisers told them in a meeting. It wouldn’t go far enough and wasn’t likely to succeed.


But if Obama does not at least try to work with Rubio, he could risk losing a centerpiece of his appeal to Hispanic voters — that he is their fiercest ally in Washington and that the GOP is to blame for lack of action on fixing the country’s immigration ills.
White House resistance to Rubio threatens to escalate criticism from Obama allies frustrated that he was unable to deliver on a broad immigration overhaul and angry that his administration has deported more than 1 million illegal immigrants.



Several conservatives have already blasted Rubio’s plan as a form of “amnesty,” but aides to the senator say he is lobbying key players and media personalities on the right to hold their fire.




Rubio’s outreach to Pacheco — who was brought to the United States illegally when she was 8 — and other young undocumented immigrants came after they had been asking for months without success for a chance to meet with Obama. The senator first called Pacheco on her cellphone, and the two spoke for about a half-hour. He later met with a small group at Miami-Dade College.
“He said, ‘If you feel at any point that this is something you guys cannot support, let me know,’ ” Pacheco recalled.



the president’s challenge has been evident in recent days during tense encounters between top White House aides and Hispanic leaders, who have continued to press for the president to simply sign an executive order preventing the deportations of any people who would qualify for the Dream Act. In one heated session last week between Congressional Hispanic Caucus members and domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) grew so frustrated that she walked out, according to people familiar with the meeting.


In their meeting with Pacheco and other young activists, Munoz and senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett offered warnings that going along with Rubio’s plan put at risk other efforts to pass the full Dream Act with a path to citizenship. They told the activists that Rubio had not demonstrated he could win support from fellow Republicans and that the president would use his clout to push an immigration plan next year( yawn). “They said, ‘Be careful we’re not lowering the bar. Citizenship is important,’ ” Pacheco recalled


But Pacheco, who remains undocumented even after graduating from college, said Obama should see the situation as more urgent. “We’re at a point of desperation, at a point where we cannot continue to live the way
we’ve been living,” she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...T_story_1.html
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