The Path to Driver’s Licenses for All in Colorado, an Activist’s Perspective

Written by Guest Blogger

By Esmeralda Dominguez for Driver’s Licenses for All

Driver’s Licenses for All is a grassroots group of documented and undocumented Colorado residents who grew out of the Initiative 52 ballot campaign, which collected more than 30,000 signatures with 1,200 volunteers and less than $12,000 dollars last year.

When we learned we didn’t have enough signatures to make it on the November ballot in 2012, there was sadness, anger, and many mixed emotions. We lost many followers and supporters, but something brought us back, the few of us who didn’t give up. Those of us remaining decided we had to keep fighting  and not take no for an answer.

For the next legislative session, we knocked on the doors of many senators, legislators, and representatives looking for sponsorship. Jessie Ulibarri, candidate for senator for District 21 at that time, took interest in the bill and after being contacted by one of our members, he decided to take the challenge. Once he won his election, Senator Ulibarri became our sponsor.

All the others senators or representatives we spoke to said, “NO!” Some wouldn’t receive us at all and others just listened, but ignored us. Once we had Senator Ulibarri’s support, we worked diligently with his staff, quickly built a team, and organized to draft the wording of this new bill.

He warned us that it was going to be a hard, long and expensive process, but we were so excited we didn’t care. Someone had finally listened, believed, and was willing to work with us to represent all of the Colorado immigrant community on this important issue.

While Senator Ulibarri was busy gaining support inside the Capitol, we organized and started having weekly meetings with him to plan our fight-back strategies. We wrote an endorsement letter to engage businesses, community leaders, organizations, allies, churches, and individuals to sign in support of the bill, which, at that time, we just called “Driver’s Licenses for All.”

We started going to businesses and churches, asking them to sign our endorsement letter. There were times when we didn’t have gas for our cars, money to ride the bus, food, water and shelter from snowy days, but we had hope, courage and the community that never gave up on us and that motivated us to continue.

I remember once when I asked a man standing in front of a mortuary to sign the letter of support and he looked at me like I was nuts. He said, “Why would I sign that?” I replied to him, “Because you never know when you will be the one being driven to your own funeral by someone who might not have a license.” He laughed and said, “Alright you got me, but I still can’t sign.”

Collecting endorsements letters, meeting with the Senator once a week, having our weekly meetings, driving around to other meetings, volunteering with other organizations, collecting funds and donations while educating the community on the bill was a tough challenge because most of us had families, jobs, school and other obligations.

Some of us had to bring our children along to the meetings and let the children be a part of this important process. Jorge was one of our young volunteers that would come to the meetings and rallies in support of SB-251. He said, “I want my dad to have a license so he can drive me to school and to the park without feeling scared that the police will stop him, arrest him and I won’t see him again.”

We held a press conference to let the community know we were ready to introduce the bill. When we announced to the public we were ready to continue we also announced the new name of the bill.  It was no longer Driver’s Licenses for All. Instead, it became the “Colorado Road and Community Safety Act,” which outlined the purpose of our bill – to have safer roads, safer communities, and add to the shared prosperity of the whole state by allowing undocumented drivers to register their cars, buy insurance and get a driver’s license.

SB-251 went through many challenges, including some very discriminatory amendments because some viewed the bill as a mini-amnesty for the state.  One amendment went so far as asking to include fingerprinting and background checks before getting a license.

Being at the Capitol through it all, learning all the legislative process, and being a part of this movement has given us a satisfaction that we had never felt before. We the people did this. The day we heard SB-251 had become a reality, we all cried full of happiness.

May 7th, 2013 will go down in history here in Colorado because it has shown once more what the people can do and accomplish when they organize.

We still have other steps to accomplish: Governor John Hickenlooper has to sign the bill, the Department of Motor Vehicles needs to implement the changes, and we have to teach the community what the licenses can and cannot be used for, all while we continue to advocate for SB-251.

Little by little we will get there and we will continue to make changes that will improve the lives of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States one state at a time.

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CROSS-POST: National and State-by-State Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

By Robert Lynch and Paul Oakford for Center for American Progress | Originally posted on May 17, 2013

On April 16, 2013, the Senate’s “Gang of 8”—a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators—filed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. At the core of the bill is a provision that will provide a pathway to earned legalization and citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America.

The pathway to citizenship for these aspiring Americans will be neither short nor easy. Under the provisions of the bill, most undocumented immigrants will have to wait 10 years before they can apply for legal permanent residency—a green card. In addition, most will not be eligible for citizenship until at least 13 years after the bill is enacted.

Despite this long process, there are significant economic benefits to the U.S. economy and to all Americans when unauthorized immigrants acquire provisional legal status. Our prior research in a Center for American Progress report, “Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants,” showed that legalization and citizenship bring large economic benefits to the nation as a whole. But as this brief will show, the economies of each state also stand to gain large benefits if immigrants are put on a path to legal status and citizenship. In this follow-up issue brief, we break down the economic gains for 24 individual states.

Both the acquisition of legal status and citizenship enable undocumented immigrants to produce and earn significantly more. These resulting productivity and wage gains ripple through the economy because immigrants are not just workers—they are also taxpayers and consumers. They pay taxes on their higher wages and they spend their increased earnings on the purchase of goods and services including food, clothing, and homes. This increased consumption boosts business sales, expands the economy, generates new jobs, and increases the earnings of all Americans.

Each state will experience significant economic growth as well. In this follow-up to the “Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants,” we begin by recapping the national gains. We then provide estimates of the economic benefits for 24 states if their undocumented populations were legalized. Specifically, we estimate the increases over 10 years in gross state product, or GSP, as well as earnings, taxes, and jobs for these states if the Senate Gang of 8’s bill is enacted in 2013. We also explain why immigration reform is responsible for these specific economic benefits. The methodology for this brief relies upon estimates of the undocumented population in each state and replicates the methodology used in our previous report.

To read more on this report, click here.

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The Path to Driver’s Licenses for All in Colorado

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Sigue en español abajo

By Pilar Carrillo for Licenses for All

The Committee Licenses for All arose out of the need to change laws in the state of Colorado. Independent individuals researched how to make changes in state law and began the campaign for ballot Initiative 52. Had this initiative made it onto the 2012 electoral ballot and been approved by Colorado voters, Initiative 52 would have changed state law to permit undocumented Colorado residents who met certain requirements to obtain a driver’s license.

Due to the tremendous effort of those involved in collecting signatures and fundraising, Initiative 52 was able to involve 1200 volunteers and gather 30,000 signatures with a budget of only $12,000. People who had never collected signatures or canvassed before overcame extreme weather, hunger, indifference and lack of confidence from the community to accomplish this.

José Ortiz commented: “Several of us began the struggle – Robin, Nacho, Homero, Javier, Elsa. Some of us stayed on the path and of those who began this fight, only a few of us remain and continue fighting. My name and Nacho’s name appear on the petitions, we were the ones who began all the paperwork for the Initiative 52 campaign. I sacrificed a lot to participate in the activities and necessities of the Initiative 52 campaign.” 

For Jorge, the passion of those involved attracted him to the struggle: “Even though I also needed a license, one of the reasons I got involved in Initiative 52 was the possibility of stopping the deportations and separation of families that in many cases begins with someone not having a driver’s license.”

The campaign first went to a church to collect signatures, and it was precisely this activity that Alejandra attended for the first time: “Right there I took the training to become a canvasser. I wrote down my information and that weekend José Sanchez called me to collect signatures at a church. This was my trial by fire, because we collected signatures on the sidewalks around the church under the strong sun. By the end, both Nacho and I had sunstroke. Since then, Nacho told me he thought I wouldn’t come back after that, but I continued to participate and support the campaign every Sunday. I also collected signatures and registered a lot of people to vote.”

“The social struggle goes beyond getting a driver’s license or winning immigration reform. The struggle is also to win health care reform, gun control, to improve public benefits. I don’t like to be a celebrity nor do I want my name published, but I became involved in Initiative 52 because I want to see changes in my own community. I will continue educating our people to open their eyes and understand the power we have if we organize.”

Despite not having gathered enough signatures to put Initiative 52 on the 2012 ballot, the Driver’s Licenses for All Committee was approached by Senator Jessie Ulibarri (Senatorial Candidate for District 21 at the time). Ulibarri offered the committee the opportunity to achieve driver’s licenses, this time through a legislative campaign.

In the new stage of the struggle, similar challenges and difficulties presented themselves. Nonetheless, the legislative campaign obtained letters of support from over 300 businesses, from representatives of public safety, politicians, pro-immigrant organizations, and faith communities. The campaign also gathered individual postcards of support from more than 41 counties in the state.

The committee held press conferences, traveled around the state looking for support, held dances and raffles to raise money, and tabled at Hispanic stores asking for donations from the community. The Committee also contracted professional personnel to do lobbying work, which included legal assistance and media relations experts.

Senator Jessie Ulibarri introduced us to Jovan Melton, and informed the committee that he would be the bill’s sponsor in the House of Representatives. The committee announced a press conference on April 1, 2013 to present “The Community and Road Safety Act,” to Senate, where it became SB 251.

After being approved in the House of Representatives with a final vote of 34-31, SB 251 awaits the governor’s signature. If it becomes law, the requirements to obtain a license will be:

  • Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)
  • Photo ID from country of origin: passport, consular ID, or military ID
  • Proof of payment of taxes in Colorado from the previous year, or proof of two years of continuous residency in Colorado
  • Pass a driving test (written and practical), as well as an eye exam
  • Sign an affidavit committing to apply for legal status or citizenship as soon as it is possible
  • Minors (under 18) must take driving classes before applying for a license, and have to be accompanied by an adult with a license
  • Pay a fee of between $41 and $60

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Iniciativa 52 historia y lucha de los camaradas

“El Comité de Licencias Para Todos” surgió de la necesidad de cambiar las leyes en el estado de Colorado. Individuos independientes investigaron cómo hacer cambios en las leyes del estado y empezaron la campaña de la Iniciativa 52. De haber llegado a la boleta electoral y de haber sido aprobada por los votantes de Colorado, la I-52 hubiese cambiado las leyes en Colorado permitiendo que las personas que no tienen documentos y que cumpliesen con ciertos requisitos pudieran obtener una licencia de conducir.

Pese al tremendo esfuerzo de los compañeros que recaudaron firmas sin experiencia soportando climas extremos, pasando hambre, organizando actividades de recaudación de fondos, enfrentando indiferencia y falta de confianza por parte de la comunidad, la I-52 logró involucrar a 1200 voluntarios, recaudó alrededor de 30,000.00 firmas con un presupuesto apenas de $12,000.00.

José Ortiz comenta: “La lucha la empezamos varios compañeros, Robin, Nacho, Homero, Javier, Elsa. Algunos se quedaron en el camino y de los pioneros sólo unos cuantos continuamos. Mi nombre y el de Nacho aparecen en las peticiones, los dos fuimos quienes empezamos el trámite de la I-52. Yo sacrifiqué muchas cosas por cumplir con las actividades de la I-52.”

Para Jorge la pasión de los compañeros fue el iman que lo atrajo a la lucha. “A pesar de que yo también necesito una licencia, una de las razones por las que me involucré en la I-52 fue la posibilidad de impedir las deportaciones y separaciones de familias que en más de una ocasión se originan por no contar con una licencia de conducir.”

La recaudación de la primera firma se efectuó en una iglesia, y fue precisamente a esa actividad a la que Alejandra asistió por primera vez. “Ahí mismo tome la capacitación para ser circuladora. Dejé mis datos y ese fin de Semana José Sánchez me llamó para que recaudaramos firmas en una iglesia. Esa fue mi prueba de fuego porque las firmas las pedimos en las banquetas de alrededor de la iglesia, bajo el rayo de sol. Al final de la actividad tanto Nacho como yo terminamos con insolación. Nacho me ha comentado que pensó que yo no regresaría, pero yo seguí apoyando todos los domingos  siguientes mientras duró la campaña. Además de juntar firmas también ayudé a muchos a registrarse para votar.”

“La lucha social va más allá de conseguir una licencia de conducir o de lograr la reforma migratoria. La lucha también es para lograr reformas en el sistema de salud, en el control de armas, para mejorar la asistencia pública. No me gusta ser protagonista ni deseo que mi nombre se publique, pero yo me involucré en la I-52 porque quiero ver cambios en mi comunidad. Yo voy a seguir educando a nuestro pueblo para que abra los ojos y se entere que tiene poder si se organiza.”

A pesar de no haber recaudado las firmas necesarias que pusieran en la boleta electoral a la I-52, el Comité Licencias Para Todos fue aproximado por el Senador Jessie Ulibarri, (candidato para senador del distrito 21 en ese entonces). Ofreciendo al Comité la oportunidad de lograr una licencia de conducir, ahora a través de una campaña legislativa.

En la nueva etapa se encontraron dificultades similares a las que se tuvo en la I-52. Sin embargo, la campaña legislativa consiguió cartas de apoyo de más de 300 negocios, de representantes de la seguridad pública, de políticos, de organizaciones                pro-inmigrantes, de comunidades de fé. Recaudó postales de individuos de más de 41 condados en el estado.

Algunas de las actividades realizadas por el Comité fueron ruedas de prensa, viajes fuera del área metropolitana buscando apoyo, bailes y rifas a beneficio de la campaña para recaudar fondos y el boteo en tiendas de autoservicio hispanas, pidiendo donaciones económicas a la comunidad. El Comité también contrató personal profesional para que hiciera trabajo de cabildeo, pudiera contar con asistencia legal y expertos en conducir el mensaje de la campaña.

El senador Ulibarri presentó al diputado Jovan Melton, e informó al Comité que él sería el patrocinador en la Cámara de Diputados.  El Comité anuncio en rueda de prensa el 1 de abril del 2013 la presentación de “El Acta Para la Seguridad en las Carreteras y las Comunidades de Colorado”, ese mismo dίa le fue dado ese nombre y el nύmero SB13-251.

Después de haber sido aprobada en la Cámara de diputados con votación final 34-31, la SB13-251 se encuentra en el escritorio del gobernador esperando una firma. Si se convierte en ley, los requisitos para obtener una licencia serίan:

-Número de ITIN (Número de identificación individual del contribuyente)

-Identificación con fotografía del país de origen: pasaporte, matrícula consular o cartilla militar.

-Comprobante de declaración de impuestos. O comprobantes de 2 años de residencia en Colorado.

-Presentar examen de conducir, por escrito y práctico, ademas de examen visual.

-Firmar carta comprometiéndose a solicitar ciudadania en cuanto pueda hacerlo.

-Menores de edad deben tomar clases de manejo antes de solicitar la licencia. Y deben conducir acompañados por un adulto que tiene licencia.

-Pagar una cuota entre $41.00 y $60.00.

 

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Janice Kephart Serves as Special Counsel to Senate Judiciary Committee

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Janice Kephart at Senate Judiciary Committee hearing behind Jeff Sessions

The Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) is well into the markup process for the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Border Enforcement Act (S. 744). The committee has already held two meetings and voted on over 50 of the 250+ proposed amendments offered by committee members. Predictably, the anti-immigrant movement is watching these markup meetings closely. NumbersUSA is live blogging the meetings and offering analysis for readers. Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) President, Dan Stein, has made himself available for press comment after the SJC’s first meeting last week. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has made perhaps the most notable presence at the meeting. One of its staff members is serving as counsel to the SJC. 

That staff member is Janice Kephart, former Director of National Security Policy at CIS. Since the beginning of the year, CIS has listed Kephart as a National Security Fellow on its website. Kephart is no stranger to the SJC or Congress. She has previously served as counsel to the SJC and testified before Congress many times in hearings on immigration. Most recently, she testified before the Committee on April 22 in a hearing on S. 744 alongside anti-immigrant colleagues Steven Camarota of CIS and ICE Union President Chris Crane. CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian also testified before the SJC on a panel earlier in the day.

Kephart is currently serving as Special Counsel to the SJC on a “limited, special assignment.” Given her ties to anti-immigrant movement, it makes sense that she has most often been seen at the mark up meetings behind Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Video of the hearings has shown Kephart giving notes and speaking to the Alabama Senator either directly before or after he would launch into his rambling, obstructionist tactics to unnecessarily delay meeting proceedings. Sessions has drawn the frustration of many SJC members including Chairman Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) who expressed his relief at one point during the May 14 meeting when Sessions stopped reading newspaper articles to the rest of the Committee that were only tangentially related to the topic at hand. 

Janice Kephart at Senate Judiciary Committee speaking to Jeff Sessions

It was revealed that Kephart would be serving this role as counsel during a May 1 episode of Frank Gaffney’s anti-Islam/-Muslim Secure Freedom Radio. Gaffney’s ties to CIS and others in the anti-immigrant movement make it more believable that Kephart would be a source of his for immigration information. During the program, Kephart unsurprisingly continued to echo CIS’ deceptive data detailing a supposed 500% increase in border crossings and helped Gaffney reaffirm his beliefs that S. 744 – which calls for greatly increased border security measures – will in fact make America less secure.

It’s expected for an extremist like Frank Gaffney to get information from sources like Kephart. It should not, however, be acceptable for those sources to be influencing debate – even if only for a fringe member or two of Congress like Sessions – on legislation.

Fortunately, other members of the SJC seem to realize this as well. Sen. Sessions’ and his obstructionist efforts have wasted a lot of everyone’s time, but ultimately have “been pushed to the margins of the debate.”

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Heritage Foundation Founder to be Honored at Value Voter Summit

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

As part of the 2013 Value Voter Summit, founder and former president of the Heritage Foundation Ed Feulner will be honored with a “Vision & Leadership Award.”

The announcement comes as Feulner’s Heritage is currently working vigorously to salvage its name and reputation after releasing a widely discredited report on immigration – an update to a 2007 report that Heritage released under Feulner’s leadership.

The Value Voter Summit is primarily sponsored by FRC Action, the legislative affiliate of Family Research Council (FRC) – a organization whose leaders are noted anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim bigots. FRC’s President, Tony Perkins described LGBT people as “ individuals that are engaged in activity, behavior, and an agenda that will destroy them and our nation.” Perkins colleague, FRC Executive Vice President William G. “Jerry” Boykin, has said Islam “should not be protected under the First Amendment” and served as leader of a conspiracy theorist group that wrote “Shariah: The Threat to America” as a project for Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy.

The 2013 Value Voter Summit will be held in Washington, DC, October 11-13.

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CAPS Fellow Concerned Immigration Bill “Invites the World,” Especially Canadian Muslims

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

In a May 15 blog post for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), Senior Writing Fellow Joe Guzzardi cloaked his usual population alarmism with anti-Muslim fear mongering. The post titled, “COME ONE, COME ALL; S. 744 INVITES THE WORLD,” discusses provisions in currently proposed immigration legislation that will allow Canadian residents over 55 to stay in the United States without a visa for 240 days rather than the current 182 allowed. This, according to Guzzardi, should not be viewed as an “innocuous request.” Instead, it should be alarming because “the fastest growing religious population in Canada is Islam.” Guzzardi’s attempts to cast Muslims as a threat is seemingly provoked by nothing other than his own personal anti-Muslim bigotry – religion is not mentioned anywhere else in the piece.

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Flocking Together: Jason Richwine & the Legacy of the Pioneer Fund’s “Race Realism”

Written by Aaron Patrick Flanagan

Jared Taylor (top) & Jason Richwine (bottom)

In the fall of 1990, Jared Taylor wrote to John Tanton, father of the established anti-immigrant movement, in search of advice regarding the launch of the New Century Foundation (NCF)–a group that, under his own leadership, Talyor hoped would eventually serve as a catalyst for a more “academic” white nationalism.

In his packaged solicitation of Tanton, Taylor included “the first five pages of the rough typeset” of American Renaissance, NCF’s magazine. As a man accustomed to being rightly branded a bigot, Tanton’s response was prophetically tinged with empathy for the younger Taylor:

“You are saying a lot of things that need to be said, but I anticipate that it will be very tough sledding.”

By 2005, Taylor was stating such “things” explicitly: “When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.”

Beyond a variance in tone, the pair bears commonalities; not the least of which is the sustained level of financial support that each has received from the New-York based Pioneer Fund. Since the late 1930s, the virulently racist foundation has sought to fund the work of “race realists” invested in proving the genetic superiority of white-European Americans and promoting eugenics.

According to Pioneer’s tax documents, between 2002-2008 Taylor’s NCF received $135,000. Between 1985-1994, Tanton’s various efforts–including the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR)–had received $1.2 million. And with such donations, Pioneer has sought for the better part of a century to inject racism into the collective mind of the American public, and it is with Pioneer’s donations that Tanton and Taylor have contributed to such a legacy.

And it is from this legacy, without question, that beliefs and writings of Jason Richwine have emerged.

Last Monday, as the co-author of the Heritage Foundation’s much hyped immigration study, Richwine took his place alongside former Sen. Jim DeMint, Heritage’s President, and Robert Rector, the study’s other author, at a press conference announcing its release, all three impressing upon those gathered the immense damage S.744 will inflict upon Americans. On Wednesday, though, Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post sparked a conflagration that threatened to surround Heritage when he exposed Richwine’s 2009 Harvard PhD dissertation, “IQ & Immigration Policy.” In that work, Richwine argues:

“The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations.”

By Friday, Richwine was unemployed.

What Matthews and others have yet to explore is the poisoned well of “experts” whose works Richwine used to build his dissertation–sources like Jared Taylor.

On its website, Pioneer writes, “The researchers associated with Pioneer tend to be ‘race-realists’,” a term Taylor has long promoted. From this, a careful scan of Richwine’s list of references reveals many such “realists”:

  • 22 publications penned by past Pioneer grantees and/or Directors (e.g. Arthur Jensen, Jean Phillipe Rushton, Richard Lynn)
  • 13 publications that Pioneer directly funded
  • all of which contribute to a total of 19 authors and 37 works sourced that are “about the Pioneer Fund” itself and/or the foundation directly funded the writing for

Acknowledgment of these influences leads one to recognize that, until recently, the ascending arc of Richwine’s career has been transparently steeped in a legacy of individuals personally indebted to Pioneer’s millions.

Angered by the “tough-sledding” the Ivy League alum is presently enduring, Taylor extended Richwine an empathy similar to what Tanton offered him in 1990. In a piece posted last week on American Renaissance, Taylor positions Richwine in a lineage of fellow “race-realists” who have been banished to the extremist fringes of American politics:

“Because you [Conservatives] are lapdogs, Jason Richwine joins a distinguished group of men fired by ‘conservatives:’ Joe Sobran, Sam Francis [of Council of Conservative Citizens], Scott McConnell [on FAIR's Advisory Board/President of Neil A. McConnell Foundation], John Derbyshire [now of VDARE], Robert Weissberg, Kevin Lamb [who works for Tanton], Frank Borzellieri, Leif Parsell [....] John O’Sullivan [former Director of VDARE], Peter Brimelow [founder of VDARE, who received funding from Tanton & Pioneer], James Watson, and Patrick Buchanan have also gotten some form of the ax for excessive truth-telling.”

And so, if Richwine’s dissertation is to be remembered as anything beyond a moment of “excessive truth-telling” that has wrought deserved havoc for Heritage, “IQ & Immigration Policy” must be regarded for what it is–a serious academic meditation on the belief that one’s genetic make-up predetermines one’s worth to society.

The culturally-biased practice of IQ testing–not unlike how poll taxes and literacy tests were once used to bar so many from voting booths–has been used throughout our country’s history as a Swiss Army knife by “race-realists” and anti-immigrant activists seeking to carve out proof that some immigrants and minorities (“high-skilled”/high-IQ) are purely more desirable than others (“low-skilled”/low-IQ). Richwine’s work, for Harvard and Heritage, captures the aforementioned legacies of bigotry in the same opaquely codified ivory of elite academia and political expertise that Pioneer’s Directors have long imbibed and hoped to more widely imbue.

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Rep. King & HIRC Members Hold Presser to Reiterate Nativist Stance, Opposition to Gang of 8 Bill

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Earlier this morning, a group of House Republicans held a news conference to voice opposition to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S.744) currently being considered in the Senate. The conference was led by Rep. Steve King (R-IA). Joining King in opposition to S.744 were Reps. Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman of Texas, John Fleming (R-LA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and Mo Brooks (R-AL). Steve King also started the conference revealing that Reps. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Lou Barletta (R-PA) regrettably could not attend, but lend their support.

The press event represents the latest attempt by several members of the stridently anti-immigrant House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC) to introduce their nativist rhetoric and extremist positions into the current immigration discussion. Last month, several HIRC members held an invitation-only press event where they echoed talking points drafted by anti-immigrant organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and NumbersUSA.

Today’s conference focused primarily on border security and “rule of law” rhetoric that the anti-immigrant Congressmen often hide behind – and use to shield themselves from accusations of bigotry. Rep. King did, however, start the conference off by referencing a new Heritage Report that has been widely discredited by both the left and right for flawed methodology and co-author Jason Richwine’s history and connections to racist pseudo-science and “race realists” such as Jared Taylor.

Amid Louie Gohmert’s warnings that the country may be “overwhelmed by people that want to destroy us” and provisions in S.744 will make America “disintegrate into chaos,” conference leader Steve King best illustrated the anti-immigrant coalition’s nativist platform when he spoke of immigrants’ need to embrace what he calls “the cultural continuity” of the United States.

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Immigration

Anti-Immigrant Movement Works to Shoot Down Rising Stars of the Republican Party

Written by Domenic Powell

Frustrated by a very public renovation of the party to make it more inviting for conservative Latinos, the anti-immigrant movement has engaged in an all out war on Republican leadership.

Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), both of whom have been spoken of as 2016 presidential prospects, have been pilloried by the anti-immigrant movement in recent weeks. In March, NumbersUSA president Roy Beck said: “In one way, Rand Paul’s plan is far more radical and pro-illegal-immigration than anything proposed by Pres. Obama or the Gang of Eight, both of whom are at least promising workplace verification to cut off the jobs magnet that has created the giant illegal-alien population in the first place.” In the same post, Beck outlined “The Rand Paul Amnesty,” a fictitious platform Beck distilled from a speech Paul made to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. 

Rubio, whom TIME Magazine featured on its cover as “The Republican Savior,” has been subjected to an onslaught from the anti-immigrant movement that venture beyond the racist into the realm of the bizarre. State contact groups for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have been circulating a song called “The Amnesty Man” about Rubio made by the head of their Florida counterpart, Floridians for Immigration Enforcement. The song stews with resentment and racial animus: “The Senator makes every bill he cooks satisfying for his people,” one verse finishes, “now talk about your dreams and wishes; soon you won’t be washing dishes.”

The GOP strategy during the 2010 mid-term elections and after was great for the anti-immigrant movement. Amid Tea Party fervor, the marketing of anti-immigrant views as authentically Republican ideas helped augment their influence within the party. In early 2012, Daniel Griswold of the Cato Institute said, “Driven by a minority of activists in their party, the candidates have been drawn into an unhealthy competition to see who can sound the harshest in cracking down on low-skilled illegal immigrants from Latin America.” Later on in 2012, hoping to consolidate the small minority’s coup d’état, Kris Kobach flew to the Republican National Convention and enshrined their beliefs within the party platform.

The small minority, however, caused Mitt Romney to lose Latinos by the largest margin in the past three elections, and Republicans began to examine whether or not these hard-line positions were ever really Republican at all. Supporters of the DREAM Act in the past were, after all, Republicans as prominent as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and John McCain (R-AZ). A Pennsylvania Republican has introduced a bill granting undocumented youth in-state tuition, and the Grass Roots Tea Party of Nevada has come out in support of driving privileges for undocumented immigrants. Sens. Paul and Rubio—who were swept into office as Tea Party phenoms—clearly know that their own political futures depend on not being beholden to the anti-immigrant movement, and possibly the future of the rest of the party.

Obviously, the anti-immigrant movement is desperate to show that it can still punish some Republicans for swinging away from their position—at least for now. The question is: how much is the party willing to let them destroy in the process?

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Black Groups Initiate a National Day of Demands to Uplift Issues Impacting Immigrants

Written by April Callen

The Black Immigration Network (BIN), a national coalition of individuals and organizations “serving black immigrant and African American communities focused on supporting fair and just immigration,” deemed today – May 13 – a National Day of Demands. The Network released an open letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee outlining ten amendment recommendations that, if supported by the Senate, would lead to “fair, just and inclusive immigration reform.”

Opal Tometi, the National Coordinator of the Black Immigration Network explains, “Many are dissatisfied and down-right insulted with some of what has been proposed in this bill. Many aspects of this bill ignore the fact that immigrants are integral to this society. And some Senators discount the fact that immigrants are connected to families, friends and the larger community.”

The letter and recommendations are in response to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 proposed by the Senate Gang of Eight on April 17. Some of the recommendations BIN has put forth include expanding categories for family visas; maintaining the Diversity Visa program; shortening the length of time to reach citizenship; and allowing all immigrants access to healthcare and public benefits.

Diminishing the categories for family-based visas in favor of “merit-based visas” would limit “sponsorship by U.S. residents to only their spouses and unmarried children under the age of 31.” That means “parents, siblings and other relatives would no longer be eligible for a family-based visa.” BIN and other pro-immigrant organizations argue that this measure is fundamentally anti-family and “treats human beings as economic units whose primary value is as workers, not humans.” Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA of Maryland, proclaims, “We believe immigration should be family based, and that corporations should not have the power over who can come here and who cannot.” “Eliminating siblings and adult children would disqualify between 65,000 – 90,000 people a year,” the Black Immigration Network determines.

As part of Senate negotiations to raise the number of “work-related visas,” the Diversity Visa program would also be eliminated if the proposed Gang of Eight bill were to pass. Established in 1990, the program currently, according to the Washington Post, offers 65,000 visas a year to “applicants from any country that has not had a large number of recent immigrants.”

The Black Immigration Network notes, “About 30% to 50% of the 50,000 visas each year go to people in African nations. Potential immigrants from African and Caribbean nations and other underrepresented countries should not be excluded from consideration for migration.”

With regard to the proposed 13-year wait time for citizenship, BIN believes “that a five-year process is a fair period of time.” A citizenship process lasting over a decade “is unduly long and burdens families with uncertainty and anxiety,” the letter adds.

When the 2005 Sensenbrenner immigration bill sparked mass protests around the country, along with calls for just and fair reform, the immigrant rights movement became decidedly Latino. And while the bulk of the 11 million aspiring Americans awaiting citizenship are Latino, the narratives and needs of the some three million Black immigrants largely from the Caribbean and Africa have been somewhat overshadowed.

Organizations like the Black Immigration Network and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration have been working to bridge that disconnect in the immigration reform and immigrant rights debate. The demands laid out in the open letter addressed to the Gang of Eight raises concerns for all immigrants awaiting citizenship, but it especially speaks to the heightened vulnerability of Black immigrants from countries like Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, and El Salvador, among others.

Often coming from countries with dangerously high political climates or devastated by natural disasters, more than 300,000 Black immigrants have found their way to the United States on temporary visas. BIN is asking for the path to citizenship to be extended to these individuals, some who have “established roots in the United States and have raised their families here.”

The ambitious demand letter has already received more than 200 signatures of support from organizations and individuals from around the country. Hundreds are participating in various activities throughout the country to uplift points made in the letter. Activities include visiting Senators’ local offices, making phone calls to the Senate Judiciary Committee members, and holding press conferences to show public support for fair, just and inclusive immigration reform.

 

 

 

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