Why We Must Continue Pushing for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

full article: click

Clearly RI4A is against DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill

A post over at DREAMActivist states why their stance against DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill does not make sense and does not help the Immigrant community.

Read entire blog post here.

Schumer was telling an itty, bitty tiny truth I guess. Ali Noorani and RI4A are not my personal advocates, legal representatives or such. They and "America's Voice" (The person in charge of this organization, Frank Sharry, failed massively to convince Harry Reid not to pull CIR off the voting floor in 2007, when the bill could have been voted on several times, like healthcare, or financial reform) go to these meetings with legislators and BARGAIN away immigration benefits for immigrants with their all or nothing approach. Their "advocacy" has retorted to posting tweets and blog opinion pieces, editorials and such on their web pages.

We need to continue moving the bar towards stopping the deportation of any potential DREAM beneficiary, approved legal status of those beneficiaries who *already* meet ALL the requirements for DREAM benefits, and though this may seem generous it is not, because it moves the bar towards CIR where anything less "generous" -benefits of the general CIR blueprint for non-DREAMERS- will be seen as compromise and therefore as passable, if such a word applies. So DREAM can be achieved in addition to another immigration plan.

If it wasn't for them rolling over on behalf of desperate and vulnerable immigrants all of last year, we wouldn't have been taken for a ride, wasted a whole year and a half believing that justice and relief were just around the corner "as soon as fill_in_the_blank is achieved", and in which the civil disobedience of just the last two months could have pushed CIR to the forefront.

As soon as healthcare is done...as soon as the new year begins..as soon as climate change...SCOTUS nomination is done...the oil spill is cleaned...the elections are over...ANOTHER new year arrives (hoping there are less of us around to complain and make noise)...we don't have unlimited time to accomplish immigration reform.
Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Charles Schumer have gone on record to say that they will deny us and the rest of the undocumented a reasonable future until they deem it convenient. Used and exploited by Dems and Repubs alike for their political gain.
The Obama administration's road to immigration reform by increasing enforcement and criminalization while preserving the status quo was achieved in part by our lack of complaning if you want to call it that, and as far as I can see, our complaining is grabbing far more attention, Mr. Noorani, than your crappy advocacy.

did you guys hear?
obama is calling on his email list of supporters so they can press congress to work on climate bill.
why didnt he do this with CIR?
not a single latino should vote for him ever agian. he obviously doesnt care about us.

i hate being right, long ago i posted that dream will get killed by idiots who want the goddamn CIR vaporbill, cir wont pass put it in your stupid heads ri4a, we also would prefer it but lets be realistic here, unless we would overthrow this nation cir will not pass in this session and probably not in next either

well i think if more republican would cooperate then it would pass this year. I think Congress has the votes needed to pass it but democrats will not be able to do it alone.

I have been watching the trend in polls over the past few months. All i can say at the moment in terms of losing votes in the senate, there is a chance we can lose up to 2 to 7 pro immigration votes ( that is counting both sides) but at the same time we could actually gain 2 to 5 votes ( net votes) for immigration depending on the election outcomes. Of course that is the ideal situation.

What many people are overlooking not all the republican candidates that have a chance to win are necessarily against immigration reform ( actually some are pro immigration reform). At the same time some of the democrats that we are losing voted against immigration reform.

My guesstimate is overall we will lose about to 2 to 4 pro immigration votes in senate. Nothing that can not be overcome if republicans start working with the democrats. If the republicans that in past have voted for immigration reform, start working with democrats then in my opinion it is a done deal even in 2010.

So i am personally being optimistic. However, the issue is not the senate in my opinion. What is more important is that will democrats still have enough votes in the house after the election?

So i think even after election CIR is still doable. If no republican vote for it this year then it will not pass any ways. The same will be true in future.

In my personal opinion republicans will eventually come along. Hispanic vote is becoming very important in the presidential elections ( and some state elections). If they want to be able to win that, they need to compromise.

Also if the democratic leaders have not reached a compromise to pass CIR or DA with republicans, then in my opinion ( i am not really an expert, so take it with grain of salt), the less immigration reform is in the center the better.

At least for now, until some primaries are settled. Some of these republican primaries are very close. It is between a republican challenger who supports immigration reform Vs one who does not. If immigration reform is at the spot light then anti-immigrant groups will probably be more mobilized and motivated to make sure some one that is anti immigration to get elected.

My guess is that right after primaries are done, we might hear much more about immigration reform.

Right now the democrats are doing the politically right thing. They are trying to tackle Climate/energy bill that in future will probably have much lower chance of passing and then they are gambling in the primaries and the 2010 election for immigration reform.

These are my take and my opinion on why things are happening the way they are.