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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06/15/12 Breaking news this morning via Associated Press: The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin giving work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of a growing Latino electorate that has opposed administration deportation policies. The administration’s [...]
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06/14/12 As the media buzz around Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and his impending “DREAM Act lite” continues, important questions remain about what the bill will look like and what its legislative chances will be. As Alex Leary writes today in the Tampa Bay Times of the impending Rubio bill: It’s one of the most hyped bills [...]
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06/14/12 Check out this very powerful front-cover by Jose Antonio Vargas of Define American on the DREAM Act and DREAMers. We’re tweeting about the article using the hashtag #WeAreAmericans. Define America’s Jose Antonio Vargas wrote a long essay about his journey as an undocumented immigrant–the full article is still behind the TIME paywall, but an excerpt [...]
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06/11/12 UPDATE: Heydi Mejia learned late yesterday that her deportation was deferred: Mejia’s reprieve came unannounced in a fax that arrived at her attorney’s office in the late afternoon. It represented the first step in what could be a long legal process, Malik said. “The Deferred Action will expire June 11, 2013,” the memo read. Here’s [...]
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06/11/12 After a growing outcry by immigrants, allies, and Members of Congress, outraged at the record number of deportations carried out by the Obama Administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new policy in June 2011 that was supposed to focus immigration enforcement on the “worst of the worst” and spare individuals who have been in the [...]
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06/08/12 Two new polls show that both Latinos and non-Latinos continue to embrace common sense, federal immigration reform and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  While some politicians continue to hide from the issue, suggest tentative baby steps forward, or hope the states will step in, the American people are unequivocal: undocumented immigrants should be put on a path [...]
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06/07/12 As you know, we’ve been publishing a series of posts from the DREAMers of the Campaign for an American DREAM.  In March, 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. This week, the DREAMers arrived in Denver to [...]
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06/07/12 The New York Times’ immigration-beat reporter, Julia Preston, wrote an important article today which confirms what we’ve known to be true: the Obama administration’s prosecutorial discretion program is not working: After seven months of an ambitious review by the Obama administration of all deportations before the nation’s immigration courts, very few of them have been halted, disappointing [...]
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06/04/12 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 Jonatan Martinez, a DREAMer from Georgia who recently [...]
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06/01/12 Since the DREAM Act was narrowly defeated in Congress in December 2010, DREAMers around the country have been calling on President Obama to provide executive relief to immigrant youth and their families.  However, the Obama Administration has repeatedly stalled, saying that they lack the legal authority to grant this type of relief. Legal experts disagree.  [...]
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05/31/12 As Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) introduces the STARS Act and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) makes headlines discussing his alternative to the DREAM Act, DREAM Act-eligible youth are letting President Obama know that the ball is in his court, and it’s time to weigh in, too. A must-read written by Julia Preston in the New York [...]
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05/31/12 Even Republican admit the obvious: it is a good idea to protect young undocumented immigrants who have grown up in America.  But while talk of a legislative breakthrough this year sounds nice, what Latino voters really want to see is action. A New York Times piece reports today, DREAM Act students have launched a campaign a campaign calling [...]
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05/30/12 Cross-Posted at The Huffington Post: Having alienated Latino voters in the primary with hard right immigration positions and dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric, what will GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his surrogates do in the general election to attract the 40% of Latino votes experts say he needs to win the presidency? Many have argued that Romney [...]
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05/29/12 Over the weekend, CNN reported on undocumented immigrant entrepreneurs, and highlighted three stories of immigrants who have come forward hoping “to change the tone of the immigration debate.” CNN explains the problems many of these undocumented immigrants face: Without a path to residency or citizenship, these immigrants are prevented from getting regular jobs without lying [...]
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05/29/12 We’ve been publishing a series of posts from the DREAMers of the Campaign for an American DREAM.  In March, 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 Alex Aldana, a queer undocumented immigrant rights activist who [...]
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05/21/12 Great read from the Associated Press today about DREAMers and the growing movement of students who are defying the law, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and their parents by “coming out” publicly as undocumented. From the article: It began several years ago, tentatively, almost furtively, with a few small rallies and a few provocative T-shirts. In [...]
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05/21/12 We’ve been publishing a series of posts from the DREAMers of the Campaign for an American DREAM.  In March, 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 Jose Sandoval, who was inspired by the CAD [...]
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05/18/12 Yesterday, the Census Bureau reported that, in 2011, 50.4% of all births in the United States were to minorities: For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing. New 2011 census estimates highlight sweeping changes [...]
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05/17/12 Today, United We DREAM, DREAMers, and activists are holding at least 25 different protests across 16 different states to mark the launch of their “Right to DREAM” campaign.  The nationwide action calls for increased protection for DREAMers and their families from harsh deportation practices and calls for the Obama administration to better implement prosecutorial discretion. [...]
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05/16/12 Tomorrow, United We Dream (UWD) is hosting rallies, marches and protests as part of its “Right to DREAM” campaign’s National Day of Action. Frustrated with the Obama Administration, undocumented youth around the country are calling on President Obama to keep families together and use his executive powers to protect DREAMers from deportation. In a press [...]
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05/15/12 On December 18, 2010, for the first time in history, the DREAM Act came to a vote in the United States Senate. However, the bill never got to final passage. It was blocked by a  Senate procedure called the filibuster. Under that Senate rule, legislation needs  60 votes to advance. So, while the DREAM Act garnered [...]
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05/15/12 President Barack Obama’s announcement that he now supports same-sex marriage came, he said, as the result of a process of “evolution” and a question of principles. The announcement was a risky political move, to be sure, to make a handful of months before the general election; it will undoubtedly help him with a broad and [...]
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