Courage of a Dream

From ABC News:

Mohammad Abdollahi, an undocumented Iranian immigrant, takes the finger-pointing in Congress over stalled immigration legislation personally.

The gay Ann Arbor, Michigan, resident, who was brought to the United States illegally when he was 3, now faces deportation to a country he has never known and where homosexuality is a capital crime.

Abdollahi, 24, and two other illegal immigrant students dressed in blue graduation caps and gowns Monday staged a sit-in at the Tucson, Ariz., offices of Sen. John McCain, who has withheld support for legislation that would give conditional path to citizenship for Adbollahi and thousands of immigrants brought here illegally at a young age.

These young people have been living, as they say, “in the shadows” for years, some for more than a decade.  In the absence of any real comprehensive immigration reform, they are taking matters into their own hands and agitating for justice now.  They are tired of hearing our representatives talk a sympathetic game and then do nothing.  They are demanding both Republican and Democratic representatives do something.

These students, Mohammad Abdollahi, Lizabeth Mateo, and Yahaira Carrillo, were eventually arrested and transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), where they will await deportation, unless someone does something.

John  McCain, although he is in favor of the Dream Act, which allows undocumented migrants who were brought here as children a path to citizenship, isn’t interested in helping these young people out.  He’s waiting for the Democrats to do something.

The Democrats thus far aren’t doing much.

Can’t drive a car, can’t get a license.  Can’t go to college without lying about your citizenship status.  Living in the shadows.

One of the more egregious facts about the immigration debate is that one of the anti-immigrant groups, declared a hate group by the SPLC, the Federation for Immigration Reform (“FAIR”) gets to weigh in as though they were a legitimate news source.  ABC ought to know better.

From the above link from the SPLC:

Founded in 1978 by John H. Tanton, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is one of the country’s best-established anti-immigration groups – and the richest beneficiary among them of the largesse of the infamous Pioneer Fund.

The Fund, which has long subsidized dubious studies of the alleged links between race and intelligence, awarded FAIR $1.2 million between 1985 and 1994, according to the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism. FAIR now says that it has severed its links to the controversial Fund.

Today, FAIR claims a staggering 70,000 members, although that number is almost certainly inflated. Tanton remains on FAIR’s board and also is the publisher of The Social Contract Press, which sells racist anti-immigrant tracts.

Dan Stein, the group’s executive director, has warned that certain immigrant groups are engaged in “competitive breeding” aimed at diminishing white power. Rick Oltman, FAIR’s western representative, has spoken before and worked with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens.

Garrett Hardin, a FAIR board member, has argued that aiding starving Africans is counterproductive and will only “encourage population growth.” Overall, FAIR blames immigrants for crime, poverty, disease, urban sprawl and increasing racial tensions in America, and calls for a drastic cut in the numbers of those allowed in.

FAIR recently helped run a billboard campaign in Virginia blaming immigrants for traffic and sprawl. Last summer, FAIR attacked Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), an Arab-American, for supporting more visas for foreigners with high-technology skills.

In radio and TV ads, it said Abraham’s proposal could “make it easier for [Arab] terrorists like Osama bin Laden to export their way of terror to any street in America.” FAIR’s ads were condemned across the country and caused former Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) to resign from FAIR’s advisory board.

In a 1997 interview, Tanton said that unless U.S. borders are sealed, America will be overrun by people “defecating and creating garbage and looking for jobs.”

ABC quotes this hate group in the article:

“When you break the law as a parent, you’re assuming a certain amount of risk, and frequently your children are affected by that,” said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform. “That’s what happened in this case: The parents assumed a certain amount of risk on behalf of the kids, some of the kids have done well in school, but unless there’s a humanitarian basis or extraordinary circumstance, why wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the sending country to take talent and capable people to work at building their own countries?”

Yep.  The children should suffer for the sins of their parents.  How modern.

And wouldn’t it be in the best interests of the “sending country,” in this instance, Iran, to take talented … and capable … and gay … people back?

The people at the Dream Act Portal have a way for us to help.  They ask us to target our representatives, find out their positions on the Dream Act and then submit our findings on the Dream Act site.

This is just one of the many human tragedies occurring as a result of our politicans passing the buck on comprehensive immigration reform.

Passing the buck and listening to hate groups quoted by so-called respectable news outlets.

Please help by contacting your representatives and urging them to pass the Dream Act, as well as pushing for comprehensive immigration reform now … not years down the road.