Lugar pulls his name from Dream Act

http://www.jconline.com/article/2011...xt%7CFRONTPAGE

WASHINGTON - As the politics of the 2012 election heat up, GOP Sen. Richard Lugar declined today to join Democrats in reintroducing an immigration measure he's long supported.

Lugar has for years co-sponsored with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a bill to let illegal immigrants who grew up in the United States earn legal status through college or the military.
But Lugar, who is facing challenges from both a Republican and a moderate Democrat in his bid for a seventh term, did not sign onto the latest introduction of the legislation, announced today by Durbin and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The national push comes on the heels of the arrest Monday in Indianapolis of five illegal immigrant students who were protesting state legislation to deny undocumented students lower in-state tuition fees.
Gov. Mitch Daniels signed that bill into law Tuesday, along with a bill penalizing businesses for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

Lugar's spokesman said Lugar did not join Democrats in reintroducing the federal legislation to help children of illegal immigrants - known as the DREAM Act, or Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors - because Democrats have politicized the issue.

"President Obama's appearance in Texas yesterday framed immigration as a divisive election issue instead of attempting a legitimate debate on comprehensive reform," said spokesman Mark Helmke. "Ridiculing Republicans was clearly a partisan push that effectively stops a productive discussion about comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act before the 2012 election."

In his Texas speech Tuesday, Obama said his administration has gone "above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement."

"Maybe they'll say we need a moat," Obama joked. "Or alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That's politics."

He called for continuing to strengthen border security, making it harder for businesses to hire illegal immigrants, streamlining the legal immigration process and creating a pathway to citizenship, which critics characterize as amnesty.

Obama also renewed his call for the DREAM Act, saying it was blocked in the Senate last year by politics when some Republicans who had previously supported it changed their positions.

"That was a tremendous disappointment to get so close and then see politics get in the way," Obama said. "You've got to help push for comprehensive reform, and you've got to identify what steps we can take right now - like the DREAM Act, like visa reform - areas where we can find common ground among Democrats and Republicans and begin to fix what's broken."

Lugar was one of three Republicans who joined most Democrats in December in an unsuccessful effort to consider the House-passed DREAM Act.

State Treasurer Richard Mourdock cited Lugar's support for the DREAM Act as one of the reasons he announced his primary challenge to Lugar in February.

Rep. Joe Donnelly, who announced Monday that he is seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate race, opposed House passage of the DREAM Act last year.

Lugar said last year that the DREAM Act was a more promising way of making progress on immigration issues, "particularly through students who have already demonstrated achievement."

"It's common sense that we would want to have them as part of our citizenry," Lugar said.

Helmke said Lugar still supports helping "a few good students who are not responsible for decisions their parents made" by coming to the U.S. illegally, but those students "should not be used in a political game."

"By doing so," Helmke said, "the Obama administration has guaranteed the bill will not move in this Congress."

Ali Noorani, executive director of the immigrant-rights group National Immigration Forum, said he's not disappointed in Lugar's decision because Lugar still supports the DREAM Act itself and, he said, because immigration has always been politicized by both parties.

"I'm not reading too much into Sen. Lugar's not co-sponsoring this at this point," Noorani said. "Let's not get all worked up by the temperature getting a little hot at this moment."

Obama also renewed his call for the DREAM Act, saying it was blocked in the Senate last year by politics when some Republicans who had previously supported it changed their positions.

"That was a tremendous disappointment to get so close and then see politics get in the way," Obama said. "You've got to help push for comprehensive reform, and you've got to identify what steps we can take right now - like the DREAM Act, like visa reform - areas where we can find common ground among Democrats and Republicans and begin to fix what's broken."

Lugar was one of three Republicans who joined most Democrats in December in an unsuccessful effort to consider the House-passed DREAM Act.

State Treasurer Richard Mourdock cited Lugar's support for the DREAM Act as one of the reasons he announced his primary challenge to Lugar in February.


Rep. Joe Donnelly, who announced Monday that he is seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate race, opposed House passage of the DREAM Act last year.

Lugar said last year that the DREAM Act was a more promising way of making progress on immigration issues, "particularly through students who have already demonstrated achievement."

"It's common sense that we would want to have them as part of our citizenry," Lugar said.

Helmke said Lugar still supports helping "a few good students who are not responsible for decisions their parents made" by coming to the U.S. illegally, but those students "should not be used in a political game."

"By doing so," Helmke said, "the Obama administration has guaranteed the bill will not move in this Congress."

Ali Noorani, executive director of the immigrant-rights group National Immigration Forum, said he's not disappointed in Lugar's decision because Lugar still supports the DREAM Act itself and, he said, because immigration has always been politicized by both parties.

"I'm not reading too much into Sen. Lugar's not co-sponsoring this at this point," Noorani said. "Let's not get all worked up by the temperature getting a little hot at this moment."

It's not a big deal it looks like he'll still vote yes , he just doesn't want to get his hands dirty until it's a sure thing this bill will even get voted on this year

Like AlexQA I am certain that Lugar will not let us down.

Yeah, I reaaaaaaly don't think Lugar will deny voting for it.

Not yet.

true, this is what i thought too.

Lugar is still for the Dream Act.

I agree that the introduction of the DA is for political gain. If this bothers Republicans who are concerned about getting the latino vote, why don't they present their own version? They will likely vote against it, and they are not doing anything to fix this problem. So, if Republicans are trying to make Democrats look bad by calling it a political stunt, they are not fooling anyone. I think both parties just make themselves look bad on this, and we are caught up in the middle of it like always.

I just don't understand why Republicans just vote yes. Sure, if they vote yes, they make the Democrats look good. But, voting against the DA is not doing them any better, voting yes at least opens an opportunity to level the playing field on gaining latino votes.

I appreciate Durbin's efforts. But, he should have waited to see the outcome on CIR, which I think has a possibility if Obama really thrusts this legislation up the butts of Republicans.

That's a rather negative comment there. I'm really expecting something positive to come out of this. We can all see the conviction in Senator Durbin's eyes. He's going to lead through with this. If it goes down, he will surely bring it up within months maybe weeks. We should really get on the social networks and start blasting Dream Act 2011 all over the damn place..tell your friends to retweet and FB update as well.

Can't disagree with you there but also we have to recognize that time has changed drastically throughout this last 10 years. This new push coming from Durbin however makes me believe that there seems to be a game plan behind this from the Democrats. I'm sure there are some political motives. However, it doesn't seem entirely politically driven. Let's hope we can beat the Republicans at their own game and show their true colors to America.

I did not mean disrespect for Durbin. I admire the man for his evident sincere efforts to get this done. But, considering that Republicans would most likely be disposed to vote an immigration bill that combines some border security measure, this version is not likely to pass. It's nice that it's on the agenda, but I doubt this will pass as a stand-alone. Hence, CIR should be given a shot first.

Combining the DA with E-verify, which Reid considers to do later this year, is a little weird. However, I think this attempt would have a better chance than this stand-alone DA, especially since it is the same version that was blocked in 2010. . .