Despite the midterm drubbing of House Democrats earlier in the month, it seemed as if not all was lost for advocates of immigration reform. One of the potential points of light piercing the gloom of the midterm returns was the possibility of pushing the DREAM Act through a lame duck congress. The legislation, which is designed to protect undocumented students brought to the United States as children from the threat of deportation, and ultimately offers a road to citizenship, has been stalled for the past two years largely as a result of Republic intransigence. Yet just as Republicans have taken back control of the House, passage of the DREAM Act seems more likely now that at any other moment since 2008.
First, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to bring the act to the floor for a vote. President Barack Obama almost immediately followed, affirming his commitment, in a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, to seeing the DREAM Act passed "in the lame duck session as a ‘down payment’ on substantial immigration reform," according to Politico. For their part, the Caucus thanked the president for his support but took the occasion to underscore the importance passing the DREAM Act for Latino voters who faithfully came out to save the collective asses of key Senate Democrats.
Harry Reid, one of those Senate Dems bailed out with the help of Latino voters, promised to make good on his pledge to bring the Act in front of the Senate. Recognizing that the DREAM Act had suffered punishing blows by Republicans as an amendment to more expansive legislative proposals, Reid indicated that he would advance the Act as a stand-alone measure before the close of the 111th Congress. "Last time we sought to bring up this bill, all Republicans blocked our effort, even though many have been supporters of the DREAM Act in the past," Reid said. "I hope that our Republican colleagues will join me, Sen. Durbin and Democrats in passing this important piece of legislation, now that we have a stand-alone version and that political season is over."
But as Mother Jones reported this afternoon,
Despite Reid's pledge to put the bill on the lame-duck calendar, the Democrats don't have the votes yet. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) supported the GOP filibuster of the legislation when it came up in September, and fence-sitters including Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) face tough 2012 re-election races in increasingly conservative states. This means Democrats will have to scrounge up even more GOP votes as a result, and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ill.), a co-sponsor of the bill, so far stands alone in backing the bill on the Republican side. Exiting Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Uta.) may be persuadable, having previously promised to support the legislation on his way out, but the Democrats may need anywhere from five to seven Republican votes in total—a decidedly uphill battle.
And this is only the start of the trouble. Jeff Sessions, apparently sensing that the time was right to initiate another hatchet job on the DREAM Act, released a ten-point "Critical Imigration Alert." Among other things, Sessions' fear-mongering act claims that
In addition to immediately putting an estimated 2.1 million illegal aliens (including certain criminal aliens) on a path to citizenship, the DREAM Act will give them access to in-state tuition rates at public universities, federal student loans, and federal work-study programs...Aliens granted amnesty by the DREAM Act will have the legal right to petition for entry of their family members, including their adult brothers and sisters and the parents who illegally brought or sent them to the United States, once they become naturalized U.S. citizens...In less than a decade, this reality could easily double or triple the more than 2.1 million green cards that will he immediately distributed as a result of the DREAM Act.
Yowzers!
Scarier still for some Republicans is the threat of losing the next round of Congressional elections in 2010. Speaking with the Christian Science Monitor, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, notes that
The pro-DREAM people are trying to gin up this sense of inevitability. Even the Republicans who cosponsored it – Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana and Orrin Hatch of Nevada – they’re up in two years and they are facing [possible] conservative primary challengers. Do they want to open up this huge new target on their backs? I don’t see it.
This prospect could lead to the abandonment of the bill by Lugar, which would not only strip the Act of its sole Republican sponsor, but also render reaching the critical sixty vote protection against GOP filibustering all but impossible. Then again, DREAM Act advocates may yet have cause for hope. Asked if blocking the legislation was a priority for Senate Republicans, a spokesperson for GOP leader Mitch McConnell replied "I don’t have a whip count on it...Our priority is making sure no one gets a tax hike and funding the government while reducing spending."