LatinaLista — In the last two days, there has been more positive news regarding aspects of immigration reform than has been seen in the last few months.
To start with, the DREAM Act received a very large endorsement from the President of Harvard University.
Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust sent a letter to federal officials declaring her support of the passage of the DREAM Act.
“I believe it is in our best interest to educate all students to their full potential – it vastly improves their lives and grows our communities and economy,” she wrote.
Another institution that also sees today’s punitive actions against the undocumented as nothing but mean-spirited accomplishing nothing but depriving knowledge to a select group of people is the New York public library system.
New York’s El Diario reports that since Monday, May 18, all undocumented immigrants have been able to use their matricula consular as a valid form of identification.
The New York board of directors of public libraries voted to accept the matricula consular, the Mexican government-issued ID card, as valid identification after several requests from immigrant activists. “The main purpose of libraries is to provide free information for academic purposes and creative education, representing all points of view,” library spokeswoman Zoila Bofill told El Diario/La Prensa.
The immigration issue is also starting to move in Washington too.
Senators Menendez (D-NJ), Gillibrand, D-NY), Kennedy (D-MA), and Schumer (D-NY) announced they will introduce the Reuniting Families Act, legislation that would resolve family immigration backlogs, recapture unused visas, and promote timely reunification of immigrant families.
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship held a a hearing entitled “Securing the Borders and America’s Points of Entry, What Remains to Be Done.”
The panelists who testified before the congressional committee included (names are hyperlinked to delivered testimony) John Torres, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; The Honorable J.D. Hayworth, Former United States Representative, 5th District of Arizona; Richard Wiles, Sheriff of El Paso County, Texas; The Honorable Chad Foster, Mayor of the city of Eagle Pass, Texas; Samuel Franklin Vale President of Starr-Camargo Bridge in Rio Grande City, Texas; David V. Aguilar, Chief, Office of Border Patrol U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, DC; Thomas Winkowski, Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Field Operations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, DC; and Dr. Douglas Massey, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
Finally, the Police Foundation released a report titled “The Role of Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties” on the impact and costs of immigration enforcement by local police.
Latina Lista will cover the findings of this report in greater depth in the near future but one finding, that leads the rest, is that all involved with the study came to the consensus that:
The costs of participating in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ’s (ICE) 287( g) program outweigh the benefits.
It doesn’t get clearer than that nor does it exemplify any clearer that the tide is turning towards immigration reform.
Comment(3)
Karen
Why do you think it’s going full speed? They don’t have the votes in Congress to pass it.
Woodruf
Support from a few privileged liberal elites does not constitute success or anywhere near it.
Horace
Really, it doesn’t get MORE clear than that? Your clarity is little more than wishful thinking, as you fail to list the politicians who will actually vote on the issue, which are very few at this point. I’ll leave it up to you to defend your assertion based upon political support from the average person on the street and his representitives, not private citizens with a bias who’ve already made their positions known and with nothing to lose in supporting it. How many Dems do you have in your pocket? They’re all distancing themselves, saying that the time isn’t right based upon the economy and you advocates are all sitting arround like the bobble-heads in self affirmation and an ignorant blissful state. The tide is out for illegal immigrants, as most Americans still see illegal immigrants as competitors for their jobs and haven’t been swayed to take the chance that liberal arguments for amnesty are possible. Marisa, you’ll eat your words in a few weeks when advocates press the issue and get slapped down.And if the economy doesn’t improve after an amnesty, who do you think the average Joe on the street will take it out on if the Republicans make an issue out of granting illegal aliens amnesty. It won’t matter whether or not illegal aliens had anything to do with it. The Dems will get screwed regardless, and they know it. Forget about amnesty, it’s just a notion in your mind. And you call yourself a political pundit?
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