Former McCain campaign staffer hopes he’ll back DREAM Act vote
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Senate Republicans are ramping up their opposition to the DREAM Act, a bipartisan proposal that would extend a path to citizenship for immigrant youths who go to college or join the military. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions released an opposition paper, published by Politico, that says the bill will legalize some immigrants who have committed misdemeanor violations and that 35 is too high an age ceiling for qualifying immigrants. Conservative pundit Michelle Malkin released a list of fence-sitting Republicans she encouraged readers to call and dissuade from supporting the measure. Juan Hernandez, the leader of Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, says his organization is also calling Republicans and some fence-sitting Democrats in Congress to try to convince them to vote for the bill, which Sen. Harry Reid has promised to bring to a vote as a stand-alone measure. In 2007, 52 senators voted to debate the bill, missing the 60-vote threshold to overcome a GOP filibuster. Since then, Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Kay Bailey Hutchison have switched their positions to no votes. Democratic Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson told Politico he would vote against cloture -- i.e., the suspension of further debate on the bill in order to sidestep a filibuster threat -- further putting a dent in the count. The Daily Caller attempted its own vote count, and concluded the chances for passage look slim. The bill's bleak outlook shows how dramatically the consensus on immigration within the Republican Party has shifted in recent years. GOP Sen. John McCain, who co-sponsored a comprehensive immigration reform bill just a few years ago, has since taken a hard-line stance that emphasizes border security. Hernandez was McCain's volunteer Hispanic Outreach director during the 2008 presidential campaign, and says he still hopes McCain will change his mind. "I believe that I know McCain's heart, and I believe that he will end up being at the end of the day someone who will have a legacy of supporting new Americans and supporting immigration reform," Hernandez said. "What is going on in his mind right now I don't know, but I've had too many conversations in which he's shown his heart to me and I believed him, and I will continue believing that he will end up being one of the champions for the new Americans." Hernandez and Ali Noorani, the director of the pro-reform National Immigration Forum, both defended the bill's age ceiling of 35 years. The bill has been floating around Congress for about 10 years, they say, so lowering the age ceiling would leave qualifying youth who've been advocating for the bill for years in the lurch. "I think individuals want to really nitpick this and say no, it should be 34, or no, it should be 30, or no, it should be 29," Hernandez said. "We haven't had any type of a legalization since 1986 with Reagan, so the idea is to make sure that every child who came in has a chance to prove him or herself" by serving in the military or attending college. Undocumented college students in Texas have been pressuring Sen. Hutchison to support the measure with a 14-day hunger strike. Those under 35 who were brought to the country when they were 16 years old or younger and serve in the military or college for two years would be eligible for conditional legal status for six years. At the end of that period, they could then qualify to become permanent residents, provided that they have shown "good moral character," i.e. have acquired no serious criminal record. Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, has introduced a new version of the bill that strips an earlier, controversial provision reversing a federal law that banned colleges from offering any benefit to illegal immigrants that it does not also provide to citizens. "This is a very personal decision for these senators as they meet with and talk to these students," Noorani says. "They have a pretty big decision on their hands in the next couple weeks." |
People, please feel optimistic and keep your hopes up. These next few weeks is probably our last chance to get the DREAM Act passed for a while.
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