DREAM moves to top of list

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/..._the_list.html

In what can only be called a major win for youth activists, Democrats may finally be moving to pull the Dream Act away from comprehensive immigration reform. Yesterday, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss the possibility of moving the Dream Act as a standalone bill.

In so doing, Reid proved he's not been deaf to the cries coming from outside--and occasionally inside--his office to pass the Dream Act this year. Yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who's been hosting three fasting Dream Act activists outside her Los Angeles office since last week, said that she supports "incremental change," code for a piecemeal approach that pursues smaller bills than one central overhaul to immigration reform.

The news comes on the heels of a week of public actions to get the Dream Act passed as a standalone bill. Last week, 21 Dream Act activists were arrested for a sit-in they staged in Democratic and Republican congressional offices in D.C. If passed, the Dream Act would allow hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth with a clean criminal record and a two-year commitment to either the military or college to adjust their status. Young people have been trying to pass some version of the Dream Act for almost ten years.

The new momentum around the Dream Act is also a tacit acknowledgment of what is by now plain fact: comprehensive reform won't happen this year. Beltway immigrant rights groups which have continuously urged the immigrant community to wait for comprehensive reform, seem to be coming around to this reality as well. The news about Reid's meeting with Pelosi came from America's Voice, a DC non-profit run by Frank Sharry, who's the former executive director of the National Immigration Forum. Sharry praised Reid's action on the Dream Act, calling it "the right thing" in the face of an intractable Congress. And yesterday, the Washington Post reported that other immigrant rights groups have decided to change course and put pressure on Congress to pass the Dream Act and Ag Jobs, the bill between farm worker unions and businesses that would provide employment authorization and legal residence for farmworkers.

But Democrats' habitual refusal to acknowledge the end of comprehensive immigration reform wasn't based on hopeful ignorance or even naivete so much as it was a strategy to hold off talk on immigration as mid-term elections near. In the meantime, Democrats have been able to keep some distance (but not that much) from Republicans, who make offensive and plainly untrue anti-immigrant claims regularly and with no provocation at all.

I read in another article that Senator Reid and Nancy Pelosi meet once a week and that America's Voice should not be considered 100% accurate. They didn't comment as to whether or not they discussed the DREAM Act. I'll add a link later tonight since I'm at work on my mobile device and its difficult to search.

It is not clear what Senate Democrats' strategy is regarding the DREAM Act, due to conflicting statements from their leadership. Id. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he wants "comprehensive," not "piecemeal," immigration reform. But his spokesman recently declined to comment on Reid's plans for the DREAM Act or an amnesty bill, saying he would defer to Durbin, the party's second-ranking senator, on his plans for the bill. Id. Durbin took part in last week's protest on Capitol Hill, and declared, "We can pass the DREAM Act this year." But he also said in May that he planned to keep a low profile on the DREAM Act because, "I don't want anyone to think I'm pushing the DREAM Act at the expense of comprehensive immigration reform." (The Hill, May 24, 2010).

http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010072...y-26-2010.html

i found this on "numbersusa" -------


And finally, there are rumblings in the Senate that Majority Leader Harry Reid may try to bring the DREAM Act to the floor for a vote before they adjourn on August 9.

link: http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nu...ecision-arizon

what ? a vote before Aug 9 ? That's scary ! ( I'm not sure if we have enough support for Dream Act in the senate at this point ! We need 60 votes, and we only have 54 firm votes so far !

yeah, it is scary, ill cross my fingers so tight ill suffer from some permanent joint damage, but hell if we wont get a vote on it we will never know who's loyalties lay where

(think we could screw around with wires in the congress and replace some yes and no keys on the republican side?)

Before the elections is a terrible idea. It should be right after the elections.

54 votes for CIR. DA should have more, right?

Before August 9th? Wow. But then again, this article comes from the crazies so I'm not so sure about it.

call all the unsure senators on any free time you have

BTW, I wanted you guys not to believe the hype people's past can say a lot about their future and with the past of the DREAM, well you know...