On Wednesday the Senate rejected the bill, the DREAM Act (S 2205), that would have provided a pathway to obtain permanent residency to children of undocumented immigrants – on the conditions that they seek a college education or enlist in the military. The legislation would have also made them eligible for federal student-loan and work-study programs.

The key procedural motion requiring to move ahead, cloture motion, on the Dream Act (the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), failed to get 60 votes it needed. The motion fell eight votes short, with a tally of 52-44.

The DREAM Act at one point had 47 co-sponsors in the Senate but had little chance to pass because the immigration issue has become so toxic in American politics. Not surprisingly, the current toxic atmosphere has created behavioral or cultural obstacles both among the public and government officials, including those engaged in law enforcement services, against foreigners in general and groups of specific ethnic or national origins. This was evident as Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, Republican presidential campaign, sought to arrest three immigrant students who were attending a Capitol Hill news conference.

Tancredo contacted the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and asked them to take into custody the three students, who were to appear at an event in support of legislation. In a statement, Tancredo said, “If we can’t enforce our laws inside the building where American laws are made, where can we enforce them?” Tancredo’s action is not surprising considering he who is running for the Republican presidential nomination on a platform that is centered on his desire to crack down on illegal immigration.

According to a post on Politico, the three students were Tam Tran, a 24-year old Vietnamese graduate student; Marie Gonzalez, a 21-year old Costa Rican college student; and Manuel Bartsch, a college sophomore from Germany. All three young adults, who were introduced at a Capitol press conference, have been living in the US for years, but their parents entered the country illegally. All three currently face legal hurdles and potential deportation, but have been given a stay of deportation because of private bills that allow them to stay in the country temporarily.

Private bills are a rare form of relief from immigration laws and are usually reserved for the most compelling cases. In the 110th Congress there are 56 similar bills. In the legislative process, private bills are treated like any other law, going though the committee process to a vote by the full Congress. When a representative introduces a private bill, it is referred to the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law panel. According to The Hill:

The subcommittee, through formal action requiring normal quorum and a vote on the record, can then ask for a report from the Department of Homeland Security on the specific case. Traditionally, once the report is received, it places a hold on a person’s deportation – called a stay – until the end of the session…

Although the mere introduction of a bill does provide temporary relief, it does not legally mandate ICE to halt deportation proceedings, such as the case with Elvira Arellano who had several private bills introduced on her behalf by Congressman Gutierrez and Congressman Bobby Rush.

Many immigrant rights activist, immigrant students, and bloggers are mourning the defeat of the DREAM Act this week, and they are expressing their outrage toward anti-immigrant Democrats. I will not deny, I have voiced my reservation several times about this bill. Because of this stance, one commentor felt I “would rather see the de facto American youth in the shadows of low paying jobs.” It was exactly for this reason I cautioned my blogamigas/os on how they frame this issue because it was bordering on calling people like myself and Fernando Suarez del Solar as supporting the anti-immigration movement and for those who know me and know what I stand for it is a totally erroneous assumption.

While anti-migrant hate groups were very vocal and the main reason for the bill’s defeat, it is hard to deny that the military provision did play a factor for some pro-immigrant activists, which I feel a large majority DREAM Act supporters continue to disregard.

Because the undocumented youth lack legal documents, the DREAM Act did offer them a ray of hope of an otherwise a dark and uncertain road. But the fact is, many of them would have been tricked and manipulated in an immoral and criminal way because the existing school system locks out the children of working families with high tuition and inflated admissions criteria. Most will be forced to take the military option to get their green card. While the DREAM Act does state that if a person only had to enlist for two years in the military to qualify, the fact of the matter, there are no such thing as a two year military contract, everyone who enters the all-volunteer military incurs a total service obligation of eight years, a portion of which is spent on active duty. Unfortunately, this deadly component is strategically excluded from the debate by many Democrats and organizations that support the DREAM Act. What good is a green card to a dead person? What good is a green card to a young person severely wounded in mind and body?

Given that there is no end in sight to unjust war in Iraq and a potential war with Iran, it was not a gamble I was willing to take. The bill did create a “crisis of conscience” for anyone who actually cares about real reform and the people it’s intended to help. After engaging in long soul-searching questions and weighing both the positives and the negatives, but I realized that the ends did not justify the means – the way we do things is as important as the results we seek! This post is not to gloat at the defeat of DREAM Act because in the bigger picture, everybody comes out losing. Our immigration system is still broken and millions will still live in the shadows.

Currently, many people had put their hopes on the DREAM Act, now that is defeated, many are feeling “sad, lonely and scared; much like the immigrants” who live in fear at the increasing number of ICE raids. Does this mean as activists we should be in the retreat? Most definitely not! But we do have to ask some real hard questions.

So why were many pro-immigrant activists and immigrants willing to settle for less? The answer is easy to explain. In today’s world, collective institutional pressure often shapes government policies and priorities: it also holds a key to public vigilance over enjoyment and protection of citizens’ rights. However, many pro-immigrant activists and immigrants are handicapped because many of them have fallen victim to the “siren songs of the DC groups and their Democrat allies” who have already sold them out to a distorted capitalist system.

Convincing the public to support policies that are, in fact, detrimental to them, requires enormous marketing skill, as well as a corporate owned and operated propaganda apparatus that is second to none. This is accomplished by cloaking harmful policies in patriotic language, and other forms of seduction, such as believing that little hope is better than no hope. It is this thinking that shapes all US policy and has brought us an endless succession of wars and other human tragedies. Policies that has sent countless young men and women dressed in military uniforms to their deaths and detained hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

New definitions are created and designed to conceal the real intent of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. They are employed as marketing tools to make blatant theft and exploitation appear palatable to the multitudes and to the helpless victims of unfettered capitalism. Orwellian doublespeak has become the norm in this country, resulting in the enforcement arm of capitalism – the rise of a police state and an emerging Gestapo society, perpetrated in the name of a democracy that does not even exist.

This country built a reputation of providing a bright future for many immigrants, however, for many this never came true. And it will continue to break the hopes and dreams of millions of people unless we the people put a stop to it.

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Tags: Democrats, Deportation, Dream Act, Elvira Arellano, Homeland Security, ICE, Immigration, undocumented immigrants |  Print This Post |
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