DREAMs deferred... for now...

Article from the Huffington Post by: Josh Hoyt, Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Posted: Saturday, December 18, 2010; 04:42pm

Democracy for Some

Today our Democracy was expanded when the U.S. Senate voted to allow gay men and women to serve proudly and openly in defense of our nation. But today Illinois Senator Mark Kirk joined a Republican filibuster and, with a minority of 41 votes, also blocked the DREAM Act from coming to a vote in the Senate. This effectively killed the hopes of thousands of undocumented immigrant children to earn their legal status by going to college or joining the U.S. military to defend our nation.

The action by this minority of Republican senators was a disgraceful action of partisan gamesmanship. Polls show that the overwhelming majority in the U.S. support the DREAM Act as a reasonable first step in solving our broken immigration system. In Illinois 79% of voters polled in the most recent election supported the DREAM Act, including 67% of those who voted for Sen. Kirk. Former Republican Governor Edgar penned a public call of support in the Tribune. Twelve Illinois college and university presidents signed a public letter calling for passage of DREAM. The DREAM Act had passed the House of Representatives, and the majority of the 100 Senators would have voted to pass it. But the DREAM Act will not be called for a vote this Congress.

Instead, the actions of Senator Kirk and this Republican minority to block a vote on the DREAM Act mean that the hopes of thousands of young people have been crushed today. These DREAMERS were brought here as minors by their parents. They know no other country, and have been educated here with taxpayer dollars. But now they cannot get work legally, cannot drive legally, cannot get loans or grants to go to college, have no path to become legal in the U.S., and cannot even join our military. They live their lives under the constant threat of deportation. Today's action means that when Cindy graduates from the University of Chicago this spring she will not be able to become a school teacher. It means that Edward cannot use the business degree he earned from the University of Illinois last year. It means that Ernesto cannot fulfill his dream to join the U.S. Marines.

In addition Sen. Kirk and his colleagues cheapened our American Democracy today. A Democracy is not real when it prevents some 12 million illegal workers who contribute with their toil in our fields, our restaurants, and our hotels from having any way at all of becoming legal. We cannot say we live in a great Democracy when we tell children that we will punish them with exclusion and condemn them to the margins because of the decisions of their parents. This is un-Democratic. It is also an attack on the deepest call of our faith to love and charity, which is why the leaders of Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish and Muslim faiths were united in support of the DREAM Act.

During his recent successful Senatorial campaign Sen. Kirk promised to work for bi-partisan solutions. He went on Spanish language T.V. promising to support Latino families. Then today he voted against Latino and other immigrant children. This will not be forgotten.

Republicans have shown no willingness to support any measure to fix our broken immigration system, other than border security measures. Therefore President Obama should declare a moratorium on the deportation of DREAM students and immigrant workers who have committed no crime.

But our faith in our Democracy and our religious faith is why we understand that we will eventually win this battle, for both the DREAM students and for their parents. The history of our nation is one of a constant struggle for inclusion in this Democracy. We fought to include slaves, and then women, and now immigrant youth and their parents. Today, even while the DREAM Act was failing, a simultaneous filibuster was defeated and now gays will be able to openly defend our nation. Democracy marches forward.

Politically the next several years look grim for DREAM students and their parents. The same Republican leaders who fought to defeat the DREAM Act and immigration reform now step into positions of greater power. But these Republican leaders have seen the historic mobilizations by Latinos and immigrants for immigration reform this year. They have seen the determined and effective leadership of DREAM students. They saw how an angered Latino electorate preserved Democrats in power in the Senate. They have seen that public opinion overwhelmingly supports the DREAM Act and legalization for the parents of the DREAMERS.

Just as blacks and women and gays are now equal in the U.S., so too will undocumented immigrants be able to come out of the shadows. The situation for immigrants today looks bad and the opposition seems united and unmoving. But in recent history we have seen seemingly unmovable forces against freedom come crashing down. We have seen the end of the oppression of the Shah of Iran, of Apartheid in South Africa, of the Soviet Iron Curtain, and of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. The drive for freedom is strong, and the systematic exclusion of DREAM students and their parents from our American Democracy will come to a similar crashing end.

In Illinois we thank President Obama for his forceful support for the DREAM Act. We thank Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, and Congressman Jan Schakowsky for their tireless leadership for the DREAM Act and for legalization for the DREAMERS parents. We thank Congressmen Quigley, Bean, Foster, Jackson, Rush, Davis, Hare, and Halvorson for their consistent support. But to Senator Mark Kirk; to the united Republican Congressional delegation, led by Congressman Peter Roskam; as well as to Democrat Congressman Dan Lipinski -- every one of whom worked to block bi-partisan solutions for immigration reform and to filibuster the DREAM Act -- we say: "Shame!"

Documented, Undocumented ... who cares?

The November elections really pushed immigration to the forefront as many candidates ran on anti-immigrant platforms, asking the American public to choose sides in this messy debate. As a result of growing anti-immigrant sentiments around the country leading to an increase in heavy handed immigration enforcement tactics, more and more people have come to our office seeking help. As such ive grown equally more and more frustrated with, not only congress' inability and unwillingness to offer constructive solutions that can benefit both immigrant communities and America at large, but also with the American public's growing opposition to helping "illegals".
The most common argument by far, and the root of people's stiff-necked refusal to offer any type of relief for immigrants is the claim that they are here "illegally", and therefore should not receive a single thing for being law breakers.

This claim is very frustrating for those who have opened a history book. The fact is that the dichotomy of "documented and undocumented" is based on a false premise - the premise that our immigration system, which separates the documented from the undocumented, is just and functions properly. This dichotomy from which so many American's base their voting choices, and from which members of congress often create policies, rests on shaky ground. This immigration system, that either puts people on a path or disqualifies them from citizenship, is antiquated and incomplete with it's most recent overhaul being under Reagan in 1986 (The Immigration Reform and Control Act - IRCA), and even then, the reforms of IRCA did not take into consideration long term effects on American society, particularly in the labor market. From 1986 to 2010, the immigration system has been shaped by placing a patchwork of laws wherever leaks occur in the system. This patchwork of laws is short sighted and lacks a longer term vision for integrating immigrant communities into society (and we must have a program for integration because it is simply logistically and economically unfeasible to deport every single undocumented immigrant from this country. Anyone who argues against this must have been sleeping for the last 3 years while the recession has taken place.) Instead, this patchwork of laws offers temporary fixes with empty futures and dead ends for hard working immigrants who "play by the rules". This is terribly unjust.

Back when California first became a state in the 1850s, governing bodies were forming, and the state constitution and laws were ratified, there were clauses within certain laws that stated that if you are eligible for citizenship you were granted the rights to x,y,z. For example, if you are eligible for citizenship, you could testify in court against a white person. If you are eligible for citizenship, you could own land. If you are eligible for citizenship you could mine in the local mines without paying a hefty land tax. If you are eligible for citizenship...
But this begs the question, who then is eligible for citizenship, what system is used to determine who is eligible and who is not? The answer: Only free whites are eligible for citizenship... everyone else, ineligible. This hardly seems just.

The system that distinguished people as "eligible for citizenship" or "ineligible for citizenship", just as the system categorizing people as "legal" vs "illegal", is inherently flawed. Therefore, any laws that rest their basis on these stipulations are unjust. And as Martin Luther King Jr. says, "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws".

What kind of society are we, what kind of human beings are we, when we close our doors to people who refuse to lie down, but rather fight to choose Life?

What kind of society faults the mother who loses her child to a preventable disease, who climbs a mountain, and crosses a river to save her second child from that very same disease?

What kind of society condemns the farmer who leaves his native land for America, because foreign trade agreements have undercut his profits, and now unable to feed his family, he would rather break the law than watch his family starve to death?

What kind of society criminalizes the youth who came when he was months old, knows no other home but America, studies hard, and wants to become a contributing member of society?

What kind of society are we when we turn away those who are so adamantly fighting for Life, all because they don't have a piece of paper, the basis of which is an arbitrary path to obtaining documents?

This is not an open endorsement for anarchy or a complete disregard for the law, but it is an endorsement for change, for a feasible solution that will help America recover from this economic depression, and allow immigrants to thrive in this nation, moving us forward together. It is an endorsement for a rational and humane approach to reforming our immigration system.



As people of faith we must ask:

Looking through the Gospels, when has Jesus ever put laws above humanity? I would propose, never.

Conversely, looking through those same gospels, when has Jesus put a human life above a law? I couldn't contain the count on 2 hands...

The law was created for people, not people for the law.

When followers of Christ confuse these priorities, we become slaves to that which Christ came to free us.

I refuse to be bound by injustice, or to let those around me be bound by injustice.
I refuse to allow fear to dictate my life.
I refuse to bow to a system that does not respect the sacredness of our God-given humanity.
I refuse to ignore the face of Jesus in my neighbor, documented or not.

I will choose Life.