Red, Brown & Blue

The DREAM Act: Back With a Vengeance

Many Latinos and other Americans have this recurring dream, and they hope Congress has the same one. It involves allowing about 600,000 college-age students who also happen to be illegal immigrants a shot at earned legal status if they complete two years of college or join the military.

And while, just a few weeks ago, the chances that Congress would pass the DREAM Act made the whole idea seem more like a pipedream, the legislation is back with a vengeance.

Democrats are threatening to push the bill through Congress in the lame duck session as what President Obama calls a “down payment” on comprehensive immigration reform. According to Politico.com, in a meeting at the White House, Obama recently told a handful of Latino lawmakers that he wants Congress to use the lame duck session to pass the DREAM Act. Obama even promised to call reluctant lawmakers personally. That is quite a departure from the timid and hands-off approach that Obama has taken with immigration in the last two years.

Meanwhile, both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said that they plan to bring the DREAM Act to the floor before the end of the year.
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Dreams in the Making

Some have long maintained that a Harvard diploma is a “golden passport.”

But sometimes what a Harvard student needs is the real thing: a U.S. passport. Or, for that matter, a birth certificate, Social Security card, or any proof of legal residency to avoid being deported to a country you don’t know.

That sort of thing would have come in handy for Harvard sophomore Eric Balderas, a 19-year-old biology major who recently became internationally known after he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for being in the United States unlawfully. The arrest occurred on June 7 as Balderas tried to board an airplane to Boston after visiting his mother in San Antonio. Because he lost his Mexican passport, he tried to board the plane using only his Harvard student ID card and his Mexican consular card. That tipped off authorities. So Balderas was quickly slated for deportation to Mexico.

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AZ Goes After Children

What’s the matter, Arizona? Couldn’t find someone your own size to pick on? You have to go after children now. What a big, bad state you turned out to be.

This fall, Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce is expected to introduce a bill that is already getting a fair amount of national attention. The legislation would deny state-issued birth certificates to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants – those so-called “anchor babies” that nativists and others on the right have been trying to marginalize for more than a decade. And why is that? It’s because U.S. citizenship acts as a protective cloak over these children and prevents those on the far right from doing to them what they’d really like to do: deport them along with their illegal immigrant parents.

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Profiling Paradox of AZ Law

The supporters of Arizona’s new immigration law, SB 1070, do have a way of talking in circles. Most of the time, they don’t even seem conscious of their contradictions.

One minute, they’re badmouthing the federal government for being ineffective in securing the border and stopping illegal immigration. The next, they’re defending the state law by insisting that it’s a mirror image of federal law, the same approach that we were just told is ineffective — but apparently still worth emulating.

One minute, they’re insisting that they care about the rule of law and that’s why they oppose illegal immigration. The next, they’re declaring their support for a state law that is blatantly unconstitutional — or, in other words, contrary to the rule of law.

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Shared Culture, Shared Burden

It is hard to conceive of a more complicated relationship than the one between Mexican immigrants who only recently arrived in the United States – legally or illegally – and Mexican-Americans whose families have lived here for generations.

It’s a relationship that is center stage now that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed SB 1070, a ghastly piece of legislation intended to get rid of one group by targeting and inconveniencing the other. It is no surprise that, when opponents of the law turned out recently in dozens of U.S. cities to condemn what is a license to racially profile in trolling for illegal immigrants, Mexican-Americans were well represented among the protesters.

They know a bad thing when they see one. The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act is a hypocritical and self-destructive law that is probably – in a legal sense – not long for this world. Hypocritical because Arizona now wants to play the victim of an illegal immigration problem that it helped create by offering illegal immigrants a friendly hiring climate for decades. Self-destructive because Arizona – if it succeeds in ridding the state of illegal immigrants — is sure to suffer from boycotts, diminished productivity, and lost federal revenue tied to Census figures. Not long for this world because it violates the 4th Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure, the 5th Amendment’s right to due process, and the Necessary and Proper Clause which makes plain that enforcing immigration law is the job of the federal government and not of individual states.

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Reasons for Congress to Tackle Immigration Reform

After going it alone to pass an unpopular health care reform law, Democrats in Congress can’t decide whether to keep passing transformative legislation – or keep a low profile. And frankly, it’s hard to find many in Congress in either party who are eager to take on immigration reform.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, seems to be backing away from a partnership with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, to write a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Graham says the White House hasn’t done enough to push the issue.

Still, this is the perfect time for Congress to restart the immigration debate because of…

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