Elvira Arellano
In July of 2006, I was in sanctuary in my church in Chicago. The Senate had presented a proposal but it failed to get enough votes to pass. An effort was made in the House of Representatives. I asked my organization of families to go to Washington to tell Democrat minority leader Pelosi that we should accept a bill which provided legalization without a road to citizenship. Pelosi agreed that such a solution to our problem was possible – but the democrats never pursued it, choosing instead to blame the Republicans for the failure of immigration reform and reap the benefits at the polls. Sadly, when the Democrats achieved the White House and super majorities in the House and Senate, through the Latino vote, they threw us to the curb! The Democratic President then deported 1.7 million people.
We face a similar situation today. Again the democrats have drawn a “red line”, now on the “13 year road to citizenship”. It is clear this red line cannot be met in the Republican controlled house. I don’t believe I am unique: I don’t think you can find ten undocumented people in the whole nation who would choose deportation if they can’t get a 13 year road to citizenship! Ask the 1400 people who are being deported every day!
Moreover the democrats gave up things in the Senate bill that were important to us in order to achieve this difficult 13 year road to citizenship. They gave up the right to return those who have been deported to their families except in the most recent deportations. They gave up the diversity visas – the way Africans and Haitians are able to come to the U.S. legally. They gave up the right of brothers and sisters to apply for an adjustment of status for each other.
And then there’s this: A man with a U.S. citizen wife and U.S. citizen children who has been working for ten years has been paying into social security through his payroll withholding. Under the senate bill he will now work for another 13 years and will pay every week into social security. Under the Senate bill, when he dies, his U.S. citizen wife and children are not eligible to receive any of the social security benefits he earned over 23 years!
The White House and the Democrats were willing to give up all these things – while doubling security on the border with no provisions for the safety of migrants, for instance, against kidnapping and extortion – to draw the red line on the 13 year road to citizenship. Now the White House and the Democrats are taking that red line to the Republican controlled House, knowing it can’t pass, leaving 11 million people with the choice to be deported in support of the democrats partisan – and hypocritical – position.
Given the record of this administration, its record number of deportations, its dragnet cooperation with local law enforcement, empowering racists like sheriff Arpaio, and its backdoor continuation of that policy through I-9 audits and raids….we have to question the motives of the White House and the Democratic Party.
It is more likely that the Democrats are using their red line to be able to blame the Republicans for the failure of immigration reform and to reap the benefits of the Latino vote in 2014.
We are disturbed that the same groups which align themselves with the red line demand for citizenship also have refused to participate in the demand to pressure the President to use his executive authority to stop deportations. It is from that demand on the President that we have made our only gains in the last six years for our families.
There is a battle between the Democratic Party and the Republicans – I understand and sympathize with this battle. But the immigration battle should be accountable to the people who are most affected.
We believe we can win a road to citizenship for the dreamers in the House NOW. We can win a form of legalization now for the rest of the 11 million. That does not stop us from citizenship modifications later as the Latino vote grows in strength over the next few years.
In a bi-partisan bill in the House, without the one-size-fits-all road to citizenship, we can correct some of the things that were given away in the Senate bill.
We do need pressure NOW on Speaker Boehner to bring a bi-partisan bill to the floor of the house. He must not be allowed to invoke the “Hastert rule.” The votes exist to pass a good bi-partisan bill if he lets it come to the floor.
We also need simultaneous pressure on the President to use his executive powers. We have won some things already. We can win more. And we have to let the democrats know that if they fail to pass a bill that stops the deportations we will shift the heat right to the President for the rest of his term in office.
I believe that those in the Campaign for Citizenship have good intentions. Still it is the responsibility of advocates to represent the people who are most affected – not to follow the party line in partisan political battles.
Our families want the right to work legally, to join unions and have rights as workers, to keep our families together and to bring back family members who have been deported. We want the right to the fruits of our labor. Most of all we want to be able to raise our 6 million children in our homes – whether they are U.S. citizens or dreamers – to guide them and love them as they grow up. We do not want any more of our children abandoned after they watched men with guns take their mothers and fathers from their outstretched arms.
WE do NOT choose deportation. WE do NOT draw a partisan red line. We want a road FOR OUR FAMILIES through the paralysis of partisanship. Listen to us!
