It is really ignorant to believe that the Dream Act will not pass because of CIR. The Dream Act HAS been introduced as a stand-alone. The vote on the DOD bill shows that there is absolutely no Republican that would vote to move forward with this- even in the guise of military funding.

Dream Act and CIR have exactly the same chances to pass during the lame duck- and luckily we have bills for both of these, and are ready to move in the case that either of them are brought up to vote.

I was in DC the week that the DOD was up for vote- speaking the senators' staff. They all gave us pretty much useless answers- they all said they either supported the Dream Act or CIR- but none of them voted in favor of bringing it to discussion.

The problem is that the Republican leadership is forcing its members to stay within the party lines- that is to NOT vote for ANY immigration bill (positive immigration bill at least). If a politician understands the need for the Dream Act- they more than likely also understand the need for CIR- it is not reasonable to believe that they really only strongly support one of the two.

And it is crazy to actually have this discussion where we are blaming a group (people pushing for CIR, like myself) for the lack of congressional support. We are all in the same struggle- and all are fighting for the same thing.