07/05/12 For the past few weeks, it’s been hard to get Mitt Romney to say anything publicly about immigration reform. That’s a marked change from the GOP primary campaign, when the now-Republican nominee never missed a chance to burnish his anti-immigrant credentials to the nativist base of his party. Romney is trying to dodge the issue [...]
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06/29/12 Earlier today, there was a report from the right-wing site, NewsMax, where Mitt Romney was talking about his immigration record: As for children of those who came to this country illegally, “I want to make sure they have a permanent answer as to what their status will be.” He then suggested he would go beyond [...]
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06/29/12 Cross-Posted at The Sanctuary: President Barack Obama’s announcement on June 15, 2012 granting deferred action for eligible undocumented youth has lifted DREAMers’ hopes about their ability to obtain work permits and removed the fear of deportation. However, with the excitement comes the need to do whatever it takes to start the application process as soon [...]
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06/29/12 Post-health care decision analysis from Francis Wilkinson at Bloomberg notes that the ruling might provide a short respite for Romney from his ongoing immigration debacle: The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Democrats’ Affordable Care Act has saved the Romney campaign from its recent message muddle. Romney ran into turbulence as soon as the U.S. Department of [...]
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06/28/12 During the closing remarks of the DREAM Act mock graduation ceremony on June 26, 2012, I heard for the first time a real emphasis on the mental health concerns of DREAMers. The student delivering the remarks spoke about Yanelli Serrano Hernandez, an undocumented youth who attempted suicide while being held in a detention center, and [...]
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06/28/12 On the Senate floor yesterday, Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been a champion for immigration reform and the DREAM Act, noted there is currently only one decisive Republican on immigration reform: Mitt Romney. Of course, as Reid pointed out, Romney is decisive in the wrong way. Reid also (again) asked Republicans to work with [...]
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06/27/12 At the Lutheran Church of Reformation on Tuesday, Dream Activist held its annual mock graduation.  Much of the ceremony proceeded with undocumented youth dressed in caps and gowns and a group of  speakers telling their stories, proclaiming “I’m undocumented and unafraid!” But there was certainly a change of atmosphere this year due to Obama’s recent [...]
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06/27/12 During the GOP nomination battle, Mitt Romney couldn’t talk enough about his anti-immigrant views. He vowed to veto the DREAM Act; called Arizona’s immigrant-crackdown a “model for the nation”; touted support for “self-deportation“; and courted hard-liners like Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio. But the game has changed for Mitt Romney, and those anti-immigrant views he [...]
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06/26/12 Many have been surprised these past few weeks.  Not only has immigration dominated the headlines, but President Obama has dominated his opponent Mitt Romney on the issue.  Why?  Because Obama understands the new politics of immigration, while Romney is stuck in the past. As America’s Voice has highlighted, the old conventional wisdom on the politics [...]
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06/22/12 Via Judd Legum at Think Progress, we learn what many of us thought, but hadn’t quite heard from anyone inside the Romney campaign — until now: Ray Walser, a co-chair of Mitt Romney’s campaign for issues pertaining to Latin America, finally spilled the beans: …Mr Walser, told The Daily Telegraph: “My anticipation is that he would probably rescind this [...]
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06/22/12 We’ve been publishing a series of posts from the DREAMers of the Campaign for an American DREAM.  Last month, they set off from San Francisco to begin a 3,000-mile, 8-month+ walk to Washington, DC to call attention to the DREAM Act and the need for immigration reform. Today’s post is from Veronica Gomez, a DREAMer from the San [...]
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06/21/12 Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is the latest in a long-line of conservatives who are spewing some anti-immigrant hate directed at the President’s latest move to protect DREAMers from deportation. However, like most people who don’t know what they’re talking about, Rep. Joe Walsh is belligerent thinking that he knows exactly what he’s talking about. At [...]
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06/21/12 In a beautiful new short film simply titled “Illegal Movie,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a number of DREAMers, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, a teacher, a pastor, and other advocates discuss the realities of undocumented life and what it means to be a DREAMer. Watch this gorgeous film below:
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06/21/12 As we’ve mentioned, Mitt Romney is going speak at at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) conference in Florida today. The speech will be broadcast live on C-SPAN at 12:30 PM ET. The big question is whether Romney will even talk about immigration. He’s been ducking the issue lately, especially in the [...]
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06/20/12 We know you guys have plenty of questions that need to be answered regarding President Barack Obama’s new DREAM relief policy, and we’ll be doing our best to get you that information as it comes our way. That said, here is a four-pager that we received late yesterday – Via United We DREAM and the [...]
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06/20/12 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will speak at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) conference tomorrow. Since Mitt Romney has refused to discuss immigration in front of Latino audiences or to respond directly to the news of the DREAMer protections announced last Friday, this event is highly anticipated. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell [...]
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06/20/12 This afternoon, at a press conference just steps from the White House, over 40 leaders of the United We Dream Network, donning graduation caps and holding banners celebrating “El Poder de Nuestro Pueblo” (the power of our community) and declaring their “Right to Dream,” will announce a massive public education campaign to ensure that the [...]
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06/20/12 It’s commentary on the ridiculousness of the GOP response to President Obama’s DREAM relief announcement as only the Daily Show could do it: complete with a Candyland-esque fantasy sequence and Santa Claus lederhosen. Watch it below: In a six-minute segment last night, the Daily show managed to dissemble many of the ludicrous and flimsy arguments [...]
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06/20/12 For the past eighteen months, Speaker  John Boehner has entrusted immigration policy to three of the most anti-immigrant voices in the GOP caucus: Lamar Smith, Elton Gallegly and Steve King. That trio has held one immigrant bashing hearing after another. Of course, all three of them — and Boehner — voted against the DREAM Act [...]
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06/19/12 New polling shows that the general public, including Latinos and independent voters, are broadly supportive of President Obama’s decision to grant hundreds of thousands of DREAM Act youth relief from deportation.  Yet while the American public has voiced its support, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney continues to avoid the question.  Both after the President’s announcement [...]
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06/19/12 Yesterday, we got word that Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the leading anti-immigrant voice in the House of Representatives, had scheduled a press conference on immigration. That wasn’t a surprise. In the wake of President Obama’s bold action to protect DREAMers, we expected the usual backlash from Smith. After all, his partner in immigrant-bashing, Rep. Steve [...]
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06/19/12 Since President Obama announced his new relief plan for DREAM Act youth last Friday, there’s been no shortage of commentary applauding him for his bold move.  There’s also been no shortage of commentary condemning Mitt Romney for refusing to take a stance on the policy change. Enter this great clip from MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell today, [...]
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06/18/12 Last Friday, President Obama took to the airwaves to announce a bold new deportation strategy for DREAM Act youth: effective immediately, DREAMers who meet certain criteria will be protected from deportation and eligible to apply for work permits. While commentators and editorial boards all over the nation applauded the long-awaited development, there were, of course, [...]
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06/18/12 On Friday, President Obama and DHS announced welcome news that undocumented youth are now free from deportation, and can register to receive work permits. And while we’re still gleaning information on how this process will work, we thought that in the meantime, we’d pull together a list of resources that might prove most helpful to [...]
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06/18/12 President Obama’s bold announcement last Friday to protect hundreds of thousands of DREAMers from deportation generated strong support from many of the nation’s leading editorial boards, who agreed with La Opinión that it is “an act of justice that also has long-term economic benefits for the nation.”  Political observers also agree that the decision will likely have [...]
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06/18/12 This week, President Barack Obama will arrive at the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in Orlando, Florida, with more in hand than a broken promise to pass comprehensive immigration reform. He’ll arrive on the heels of his announcement of temporary relief from deportation for certain DREAMers-a decision [...]
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06/17/12 On the June 17th broadcast of “Face the Nation” on CBS News, Mitt Romney was asked three times whether as President he would accept or rescind President Obama’s executive action to protect hundreds of thousands of DREAMers.  Romney dodged the question three times (see transcript below). The following is a statement by Frank Sharry, Executive Director [...]
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