Pelosi: Hispanic Caucus delaying DREAM Act Movement!

I.KNEW.IT

The incoherence and seeming non-matching answers we've been getting from different lawmakers was because they had resisted ousting each other. Since the Speaker is fed up with the House passing legislation that only sits around, she dropped this today. It was only a matter of time until someone dropped the hot potatoe! All I have to say is keep up the pressure and don't let up. Boy, I bet soon we'll see a transcript of the backstabbing RI4A and NCLR and all the others who backroom-dealt this crap with lawmakers published in the media. It's started! Let the s**t hit the fan, I say.

Pelosi: Hispanic Caucus delaying DREAM Act movement.

By Todd A. Heywood 7/25/10 1:30 AM

LAS VEGAS, NV — Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, told a crowd of 2,000 progressive bloggers and activists Saturday that while pressure is building for swift passage of the DREAM Act, it is unlikely to move until comprehensive immigration reform moves.

“There is a difference of opinion on how to move this forward,” Pelosi told the crowd, gathered for the fifth Netroots Nation conference. “The Hispanic Caucus doesn’t want us to take one part of comprehensive immigration reform which may be easier to pass — but instead pass it as part of comprehensive immigration reform.”

This news is likely to anger student activists who have been coordinating a concerted effort to move the Congress to pass the DREAM Act now. The legislation, if enacted, would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented youth who were brought to the United States at a very young age.

Speaking just hours after Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the DREAM Act won’t move in the Senate unless he is certain he has 60 votes.

“I am happy to do the DREAM Act,” Reid said. I’m not going to do the Dream Act unless I have 60 votes. I won’t disappoint all those young men and women.”

Reid prefaced the announcement by telling the story of meeting an undocumented youth who was top of her small high school. The young woman told Reid that she was unable to attend college because of her status as an undocumented resident. Reid said he thought the woman had it wrong, and when he found out she didn’t, he said that made him want to do something to help her and thousands of other young adults brought to the United States as children.

“No one has worked harder on immigration reform than me,” Reid said. “And I have the scars to prove it.”

As Reid spoke four young adults walked up the barricade before the stage. They were dressed in graduation gowns and caps. This is a visual tactic being used by undocumented youth who have unleashed a coordinated effort to pressure the Congress to pass the DREAM Act.

Ann Arbor resident Mohammad Abdollahi is one of the organizers of the direct action group which has staged a shut down of a major freeway in California and did a sit in in Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) Tucson office.

Abdollahi was arrested at the sit in, and is now facing deportation. As a gay youth from Iran, if he is returned to Iran he faces torture and execution for being gay.

The issue of immigration has become a flash point issue nationally after Arizona passed SB 1070. The new law allows law enforcement to inquire about a person’s citizenship during contact such as a traffic stop. Critics of the law say it demands law enforcement engage in racial profiling. Michigan has joined other states in considering a similar measure.

http://michiganmessenger.com/40016/p...m-act-movement

When are Hispanics going to learn not to be shepherded around?? They (because I don't) must stop following so-called 'leaders' with whom we only have ethnic ties in commom.

Where is the guarantee that if CIR fails, the Republicans will guarantee to vote 'yes' on DREAM? *insert silence*

Where is the guarantee that replacements for the Sens. that are retiring, including Bayeh, Dodd, Bennett, WILL vote 'yes' on DREAM, let alone CIR? *insert silence*

Can they guarantee that THEY will be there as part of the next Congress? *insert silence*

heartbroken....

I have quoted several members of the Hispanic Caucus saying they are against passing the dream act separately from CIR. The chairman of the CHC even refuses to co-sponsor the dream act. I don't even think they have the votes to pass the kind of CIR they want to pass in the house.

Interesting article, very revealing as to what is going on. I had a feeling Latino political groups were influencing the tactics of CIR/DA, but I had no idea they were overtly rejecting a stand-alone DREAM Act.

On another note, Abdollahi is facing deportation? Was he charged with a crime? I'm very sorry to hear that. We need to be smarter with how we do things.

PS- front page of dreamactivist.org is not loading...

Another reason that I think these people don't want separate the DREAM from the CIR is because they think the DREAM will help the CIR pass because it has so many supporters. But I think the CIR will help the DREAM fail.

If you are taken into custody by ICE, once they confirm your immigration status, they will place you in deportation proceedings. He will get a hearing and if there's no legal avenue for relief, the judge will order him deported. Now, ICE can agree not to pursue it, but the deportation order is part of you immigration file. If DA passes, he will have to file a waiver and I don't know if he has to litigate his case again and it's up to the justice department or homeland security to grant him the waiver.

Napolitano should agree to grant stay of deportations for potential DREAM beneficiaries, I believe Sen.Durbin wrote her a letter to which homeland security never responded. And something is up with dreamactivist.org because I haven't been able to access it since the 19th.

The Republican lawmakers that re-wrote immigration laws in 1996 and Clinton passed with not so much as batting an eyelash, removed all personal discretion from judges in granting relief in these cases. There's a thread I posted a while back regarding a new law that's set to take effect Nov.1st that will re-instate this discretion to undocumented immigrants litigating their cases.