Some thoughts, our lobbying efforts, future??

Some thoughts

All of us are disappointed and sad with the vote yesterday. Despite our best efforts, we failed to convince enough Senators of the merits of the DREAM Act. The opposition is giddy with happiness and gleefully cheering their "victory". As we all know, our primary opponents, ALIPAC, has been associated with ultraconservative political groups, groups that include neo-Nazis and militant Christians. In a simplistic sense, their "victory" is a win for racism and xenophobia that has pervaded this nation for the last few years, personified by a President who believes he is the embodiment of the Christian will. He and his Administration have distorted facts, lied, cheated and beguiled the American public in an attempt to serve as the lightning rod for militant Christianity. The Administration's blatant disregard of the truth, the rule of law and Constitutional liberties have legitimized these neo-conservative groups who have sworn a blind allegiance to lies, misconception and hatred.

Unfortunately, the voices of reason, intelligence and truth failed to pierce this allegiance. The Constitution is one of the two greatest documents of our nation, the other being the Declaration of Independence. And this great document was amended to limit a President's service to two terms. This term limit was borne out of the reasoning that unlimited service set a
dangerous framework for one President to assume dictatorial powers. In hindsight, this amendment can be seen as limiting the work of a great President but also minimizing the damage of a bad President. President Bush has been a disastrous President. He has effected great damage on this country but his removal from office is the first step towards a new period of Reconstruction. This Reconstruction is not to rebuild our physical infrastructure but to rebuild our ethics and values. I am hopeful that January 20, 2009 will be a new birthday for America.

I'd like to gratefully thank the citizen members of this forum (forgive me, I can only name two, Tasksgirl & MrsMom) and the American citizens who support us, for their tireless work in helping us try to pass the DREAM Act. Your help is sincerely appreciated and is a testament to the fact that racism and hatred constitutes only a minority voice in our country. We love you all and thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If fate decreed that I would only have the opportunity to know your goodness and kindness as an undocumented person, then I thank fate for this opportunity.

Our lobbying efforts

As undocumented students in this country, we are faced with several characteristics that hurt and in some cases, severely injure, our lobbying efforts. I'd like to lay out three conditions of why our voices are consistently drowned out by our opposition:

1. The majority of us are teenagers. As teenagers we are vulnerable to the normal tastes, wants, likes and dislikes of our
peers. This includes the natural aversion to political activism. We simply aren't politically active and I'm not referring to
our inability to vote. Relative to older adults, we don't concern ourselves with political issues. Yes, we called, emailed and
faxed our Senators and Representatives during the past few weeks but as teenagers, our political efforts are constrained
and limited. I don't say this to place blame on anyone or to undermine those members who have worked tirelessly, I say
this because its a natural condition to our population and its a severe detriment to our futures.

2. We always lose the media war. It is discouraging to see that the national immigration debate is monopolized by the
conservative media. Consequently, we lose the average person to misinformation and outright deception. Lou Dobbs and
Fox media are very adept at inciting people's emotions and they've done so time and time again to mislead the public
about the DREAM Act. Congress-members have said that many of their opposition calls were angry and emotional. I am
confident to assume that new callers for the opposition were much more emotional than the regular opposition callers.
This can easily be proved by comparing ALIPAC's forum to our forum. Look at the number of members that joined
ALIPAC's forum in the last few weeks and read some of their posts. Not only did greater numbers of people join their
forum but they became immediately active by posting and calling. Additionally, the emotional content in their posts is far
superior to ours.

3. We lack effective grassroots lobbying. This refers back to Condition 1. One of our limiting characteristics is that we lack
effective grassroots campaigns. What is a grassroots campaign? Its an effective lobbying effort of a community or
constituency against the established political conditions. We have many groups scattered across the country, individually
supporting the DREAM Act but we don't have a national cohesive campaign to bind the lobbying efforts in all 50 states. I
know there are difficult challenges to create such a national campaign but we should certainly try.

These three conditions, I believe, are the primary challenges to our lobbying. I don't propose any solutions because, frankly, I don't have any. There are far more people qualified to propose solutions to these issues and I encourage them to post here.

Our Immediate Future

Many of us are in dire, time-sensitive situations that are so devastating that we needed immediate benefits from the DREAM Act. To those members, I'm sorry to say that our country failed you and our government failed you. In the immediate future, some of our numbers will decrease due to deportation or personal decisions to pursue our lives elsewhere in the free world.

To the remainder of us, let us look to 2009. It is a known fact that Congress will absolutely not deal with the immigration issue till a new President takes office. However, it is impossible to say whether immigration will be a priority in the 2009 Presidential Agenda. The War in Iraq will remain the foremost issue and dependent upon the makeup of Congress, immigration may not be tackled until the President's second or third year. So what do we do?

1. Continue our campaign of calling Senators and Representatives. This is our foremost political weapon and we must
continue to do this. We can't win by outnumbering our opposition during critical times. We must sustain a prolonged
campaign of calls, emails and faxes and grassroots lobbying.

2. Do well in school. This is the one condition that no one, and I mean absolutely no one, can take away from us. Do well in
school. Ace your tests, take AP classes, join clubs, participate in sports, overachieve on everything. Its hard but it makes
us that more attractive to the American people, because yes, this is a PR war. We're not all farm hands trying to pick
cherries and apples. We are stellar students begging for an opportunity.

3. Try to pursue a college degree. We have many challenges in our pursuit of a college degree but do whatever you can to
obtain one. If you have to give up breakfast or lunch to afford college, then do it. A college degree is our entrance to a
better life, here or elsewhere. We are nothing without a college degree. Remember that and take it to heart.

These are just some of my thoughts over the past 18 hours. Feel free to comment or criticize.

Well... we DID get the majority... it's not our fault we needed 60 votes. Plus... 4 supporters were missing... and we STILL got the majority...

I think Dream was rushed onto the Senate floor. One senator was saying that there are other problems that haven't been worked on and that Dream seems like the least important. Maybe it would've faired better if Dream was brought to the floor sometime around January? Seems like they're just trying to rush it to hell.

It was just a cloture vote, though...

We lobbied for it to brought up, we called reid and asked him to bring it up before nov 16, I agree maybe, the outcome would have been different if, reid and durbin would have brought it up will all of co-sponsors there in the chamber, maybe the outcome would have been different in January. However, we must take into consideration in the future and asks the senate leaders to bring it up when all of our co-sponsors are there, Mccain has no exucuse he just turned his back to us.

I really don't buy that excuse. The opposition is the same that was bringing up votes to condemn MoveOn.org and talk about the Armenian genocide and call the Iranian army terrorists.

I actually agree with many points that you just made.

There are several grassroots organizations out there but we dont have a national organization or network of dream act students that can build political power.

Most of us are young but that doesnt impede us from policy work. Unfortunately, we are not the power players here but that takes years to build. What we do have the capacity to create, with citizen Dreamers out there, is a separate organization looking out for the interest of immigrant youth that can represent a national voice not pockets of dream students.

I was sick after the vote. Very upset with the way this nation is governed. I called my home state senators the most; Hutchison and Cornyn. I will not be supporting Cornyn anymore, that's for sure. I know I'm not in all of your shoes; I'm a native. But I really do understand this issue by having friends (several) in your position. I really feel this our government is being tragically unfair.

I really agree with RahmanIV. You all must realize some important things. First of all, if the average American citizen had the DREAM Act explained to them and could actually put a face or a person to the cause, I believe a great majority of Americans would be in favor of it. The problem is: Numbers USA and ALIPAC frame the immigration debate every time it comes up. They are extremely well organized and funded. We need to find a way to win the PR game. They have masterfully turned the entire immigration issue into: Illegal=Deport...no two ways about it. They have made it part of the conservative right philosophy. Which is shameful. Because it's not black and white. There are compromises that need to be made. But you have to remember that most Americans don't know people like you exist. They've never met you, (so they think) talked to you, seen you, etc. So you're out of their minds. They hear "immigration bill" and many are automatically opposed. But people that I've talked to that aren't big on immigration issues all seem to think DREAM is reasonable and fair. I just know that not enough people know about it. And when it comes up for consideration, Numbers and ALIPAC flood congress with bullshit calls, faxes and emails. This has a pursuasive effect because of their organization and thier numbers. But I know they don't really speak for a majority of Americans.

Point by point, I'm confident I can win a debate against anyone that is not for the DREAM Act. It should be debated in public forums. We need to organize better, be bolder, work together and pester the politicians untill they can't take it anymore. Please don't give up. I think we can win the hearts of people if we play the game better. But that means getting the PR stuff done right. Meeting politicians. Setting up more PACs.

Anyway, I'm here to help anyway I can. If any of you have ideas, I'd be willing to help. I'm not afraid of speaking to people about this issue, either. I'm with you. Please continue to be strong. I believe in my heart that you are worth fighting for.

Justin

what kind of involvement do dream act supporters have with churches? I think that is a great and very important way to lobby. I know the Catholic church is involved, but what about other denominations? I am going to talk to my unitarian (very liberal and big on social activism ... you should check out the unitarian universalist association -- if not for churchiness for their political activity in your community.) church. They're all about social justice. They have been big supporters of many contraversial issues. What about local hispanic organizations? I don't know what other nationalities are represented locally, but I do know that there are organized hispanic groups in my community.

Absolutely, JGro. The problem is the presentation. If you are asked, "Do you want criminal aliens who have been raised to steal identities and falsify documents to be able to come citizens and infiltrate our armed forces and voting process?" then you're going to say NO. If you are asked, "Do you want illegal gang members and drug dealers to take your child's place in college?" then you're going to say NO. We have to change the national dialogue to something more honest.