In Salinas, California, local students have teamed up with the United Food Workers to set up a phone bank mobilizing Latino voters to call Senators on the fence and urge them to pass the DREAM Act.

Jorge Valenzula, deputy organizations manager for the United Farm Workers, said the legislation will benefit 800,000 students, many of whom have spent their entire lives in the United States.

“The only difference between them and a regular American is a piece of paper,” he said. “A lot of them have never even been to Mexico.”

The DREAM Act currently has the support of only 3 Republicans, Sen. Lugar (IN), Sen. Murkowski (AK), and Sen. Bennett (UT) — about 4 less than is necessary for passage.

You don’t have to be in Salinas to make a difference though — you can make a call right now to support the DREAM Act, without getting up from your computer.

Obviously the DREAM Act has been caught in their snare, along with other measures like the new START II Treaty, the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and others. Senate Republicans have obstructed each measure, even though they all have broad bipartisan support and majorities of Americans in favor of them.

For instance, the DREAM Act, which just passed the House of Representatives, is favored by 54-42 by Americans, according to Gallup.

So take a minute and CALL YOUR SENATOR and ask them who they are representing in Congress — the American people, or their restrictionist base?

Last night, during the House vote on the DREAM Act, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California said this:

“It is not being cold-hearted to acknowledge that every dollar spent on illegal immigrants is one dollar less than our own children, our own senior citizens, and for all those who are in this society who played by the rules, who paid their taxes and expect their government to watch out for their needs before it bestows privileges and scarce resources on illegals who have not played by the rules,” said California Rep. Dana Rohrbacher. He later called the DREAM Act “affirmative action amnesty” because it would allow immigrant youth privileges that “non-minority citizens” would not be allowed to access.

Adam Serwer responds appropriately:

The DREAM Act does force applicants to pay taxes, in addition to about $2,525 in application fees over the 10 years they spend as conditional nonimmigrant residents. But it doesn’t “bestow” any privileges on applicants that Americans don’t already have; it provides them with a 13-year arduous path to citizenship during which they have to adhere to very high behavioral, educational, and occupational requirements. Michelle Malkin calls DREAM an “illegal immigrant bailout,” which stretches the limits of Luntzian truthiness: A bailout is now when people give the government money.

As an argument against the substance of the DREAM act, Rohrbacher’s tirade falls flat. But as an expression of the widely held conservative view that minorities and whites in America are in a zero-sum competition for scarce resources, I think it’s relatively concise. When “those people win,” real Americans lose. That’s Rohrbacher’s argument against the DREAM Act….

…

Since it’s actually worse to call something out as racist than do something racist, politeness dictates that we pretend these are all substantive objections to policy rather than fairly blatant attempts to exploit white racial resentment.

Last night, the House of Representatives made history by passing the DREAM Act by 218 votes.

It was an emotional night for so many people who have been fighting for this legislation – some of them for 10 years. One of our partners at Voces de la Frontera summarized the emotions well here. Basically, this week has been a roller coaster.

But last night, the House of Representatives gave us all hope by passing the DREAM Act and getting us one step closer to justice for undocumented youth.

Now, the Senate will hold a cloture vote on the bill at 11AM today. This vote will decide if the bill moves forward to an up or down vote in the Senate. (What is cloture? Read here.)

That means it’s time to keep fighting and keep calling.

Click here to call your Senator and ask them to vote YES on the DREAM Act>>

(photo via Adrian Gonzalez)

For your daily dose of DREAMer inspiration, check out Gaby Pacheco talking to fellow DREAMers while lobbying Congress this week.

Click here to call in and hear Gaby’s story. Then tell your Representative to vote YES on the DREAM Act later today.

Watch the video, and then make a call for the DREAM Act. Just enter your phone number and zip code in the box, and we’ll call you back right away. You’ll hear from a DREAMer, Gaby, about why the DREAM Act is so important and some instructions on what to do when we patch you into your Representative.

Before November’s midterm election, The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes was in California, touting Carly Fiorina as the Republican who would finally defeat Sen. Barbara Boxer:

… In each of her three previous Senate races, there was a moment when Republicans thought they would defeat her. In 1992, the supposed electoral “year of the woman,” she benefited from a weak showing in California by the first President Bush and a calculated leak late in the campaign that Bruce Herschensohn, her Republican foe, had patronized a strip club. She won with 48 percent of the vote. Six years later, Boxer defeated state treasurer Matt Fong after he stumbled on the abortion issue, twice shifting his position. She won, 53-43 percent. In 2004, Jones’s challenge faded quickly. Boxer won, 58-38 percent.

…

In 2010, things are different. The first is Fiorina. She is the most attractive and best financed candidate Boxer has faced. Fiorina, 56, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, articulates the free-market alternative to liberal, statist economic policies better than any candidate I’ve seen this year. Her experience as a highly visible corporate executive in Silicon Valley has made her a poised candidate, a natural, though it’s her first run for office. This is a surprise, since ex-CEOs are usually poor candidates.

The “anti-incumbent, anti-Washington, antigovernment feeling,” as Spencer calls it, has produced a Republican tailwind, the likes of which Boxer has never encountered as a candidate. Her record is now an issue, big-time.

…

The Boxer-Fiorina race is the single most important and symbolic event of the 2010 campaign. Republicans don’t require a Fiorina victory to gain 10 seats and take control of the Senate. But Boxer has a special status. She’s the epitome of 21st-century liberalism run amok. The aftershock of her ouster would be shattering. “It would have a tectonic effect as the Democrats sift through the rubble of the 2010 campaign,” says Ken Khachigian, the Republican consultant and speechwriter.

Now, with the elections in the past, Barnes has revisited California and Fiorina to dissect what went wrong. And here’s the shocking part — I agree with him:

While gaining in most states, Republicans have lost ground in California since the last midterm election in 2006. The Democratic advantage in party registration was 42-34 percent four years ago. Now it’s 44-31 percent. Republicans are regarded unfavorably by nearly a 2-1 margin, according to Sundheim.

The most surprising aspect of their defeat was the surge in Hispanic turnout. Hispanics are 21 percent of registered voters but were 22 percent of the electorate this year. “That exceeded any historical number we’ve ever seen,” Khachigian says. Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.

Bill Whalen, a political analyst at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, says Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman was initially picking up Hispanic support with a flood of ads in the Hispanic media. A month before the election, she was accused of mistreating her Hispanic housekeeper, Nicky Diaz, whom she had fired a year earlier after learning Diaz was in the country illegally. Democrats spent millions to play up Diaz’s allegations on Spanish-language television.

…

In 2010, the fishhook didn’t materialize. Republicans did poorly in Sacramento, their vote in San Diego and Orange County was weak, and they were crushed by a massive Democratic turnout in L.A. Democrats outspent Republicans by 3-1 or 4-1 on get-out-the-vote efforts. “Most of that appears to have been spent in Los Angeles,” Sundheim notes. One result: The African-American vote is estimated to have nearly doubled from its normal turnout in a midterm election.

Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, was an excellent retail candidate who believed until late on Election Night that she had a chance of winning. “I was proud of the campaign we ran,” she told me. “In the end, the Democratic turnout swamped us.” She lost to Senator Barbara Boxer, 52-42 percent. In the governor’s race, Whitman was defeated by Jerry Brown, 54-41 percent.

Is it any surprise that Republican hypocrisy and hostility towards immigrants caused a huge backlash, and led to the party’s complete rout in November? Barnes may have identified the problem, but he has the cause all wrong. He blames a “destructive primary”, which depleted Fiorina’s finances. Except that Fiorina donated generously to herself, spending $5.5 million of her own money, in addition to NRSC resources.

Barnes, like many national Republicans, is unable to admit that the Republican position on immigration reform is untenable in many parts of the country. Calling every reform proposal a “bailout” or “amnesty” is not going to endear the party to the fastest growing demographic in the country. Continuing to demagogue immigrant communities will eventually do the same thing to state Republican parties in places like Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado into mirrors of the California GOP.

Following in the steps of President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has come out in support of the DREAM Act:

By opening the American Dream of college for these bright, talented youth, we will unleash an academic force into the U.S. higher-education system. The result will be a new generation of college graduates who will help strengthen our economic security. This new generation will be a new set of future taxpayers who will contribute much more as college graduates than they ever would as struggling workers moving from one under-the-table job to another. They will help build the economy of the 21st century.

…

The students who will benefit from the DREAM Act are some of our country’s best and brightest. They were raised and educated in America. They include community leaders and volunteers who are committed to service in their neighborhoods. They are valedictorians and star athletes. They text and go to the mall. They are Americans in every sense of the word. They have deep roots here and are loyal to the country that has been the only home they’ve ever known. They want to serve our country and hope to become pediatricians, teachers and engineers. They are exactly the type of young people America should be embracing.

But, unlike their classmates, DREAM Act students are in a bind. It goes against the basic American sense of fairness to punish children for the choices of their parents. But thousands of young people find themselves in that position. We can’t let them continue to live unfulfilled lives of fear and squandered hopes. We must rise above the heated political rhetoric and embrace this common-sense approach. And we need to do it now before we lose this generation. It’s who we are as Americans, at our best.

Secretary Duncan and Secretary Gates have both come out in support of the DREAM Act, and it is time for the Senate to act. Call your Senator now and ask them to support the DREAM Act.

With Congress returning from the Thanksgiving recess, a vote on the DREAM Act could happen as early as this week.

Today and tomorrow there are events across the country, calling for immediate passage of the DREAM Act.

DREAMers are fasting for justice in Texas and Indiana. The fasting has spread to multiple locations in Texas, all aimed at gaining support from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has said she will vote NO on the bill.

Started two weeks ago by a dozen students at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the hunger strike spread this week to UT campuses in Austin, Dallas, Arlington, Brownsville and Edinburg, as well as the University of North Texas in Denton, according to members of DREAM Act NOW!, the UTSA student group that organized the strike. (via MySanAntonio)

In Ohio, an entire community has rallied around Bernard Pastor, an 18 year old honor student and soccer star who is under deportation proceedings after a minor car accident. His fellow classmates and Reading, Ohio community has been activated around the issue of the DREAM Act, even organizing 19 students to visit Pastor in a detention center where he is currently being held over 100 miles away from his home.

Brandon Minor, 19, a Wilmington College student who graduated with Pastor, organized the visit Saturday and is planning another protest this coming Saturday at the Butler County Jail in Hamilton – like Morrow County’s jail, a federal detainee site.

“It’s about Bernard,” Minor said. “We’re listening to him. If he does get sent to Guatemala, we want to know where we could send him money. We will do whatever he needs.”

Jenny So, 18, of Sharonville, another 2010 Reading graduate, walked out of the visiting room to the women’s restroom to compose herself.

A few minutes later, she said, “It was great to see him but heartbreaking to have to talk to him through the glass. He doesn’t deserve this. It’s unfair. It’s wrong.”

She blinked hard. (via Cincinnati.com)

On the national front, the Wall Street Journal has officially endorsed the DREAM Act, calling it “A Worth Immigration Bill”.

The immigration debate continues to fester in the absence of any White House leadership. But it’s in the interests of the country that Republicans in the next Congress find some room for compromise, and pending legislation aimed at undocumented youths is a good place to start.

The Dream Act would create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrant children who attend college or join the military. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that he will schedule a vote on the measure during the lame duck session of Congress. (via the WSJ)

And today, Newsweek profiles Representative Luis Gutierrez in his fight for the DREAM Act and continued promise to hold President Obama to his word.

Though the two Chicago Democrats were once close, Gutierrez has spent much of the past two years badgering the president on the issue. “He was clear in his commitment to me,” says Gutierrez. And yet “everything has been enforcement, enforcement, enforcement”—more deportations of undocumented immigrants, more troops on the border. “How,” asks Gutierrez, “is this different from what George W. Bush did?” (via Newsweek)

If DREAMers are starving for the DREAM and Gutierrez is being gutsy enough to stand up to President Obama, you can certainly make a phone call. Right?

Click here to tell your Senator you’re counting on their support of the DREAM Act. Will they stand up for students like Bernard or will they cower behind the demagoguery of people like Jeff Sessions? It’s their choice, but we have to be sure they make the right now.

Call your Senator now>>

Over the weekend, one of Illinois’ most respected Republican voices, former Governor Jim Edgar, penned an op-ed in support of the Dream Act.

Via the Chicago Tribune:

A rational approach to comprehensive immigration reform should begin with the young people who were brought here as babies, toddlers and adolescents.

Many have worked hard in school. Some want to serve in our military. All are undocumented. They live every day in fear of being caught, uprooted and sent to a country some have never known as their home.

A nation as kind as ours should not turn its back on them. Congress needs to support the sensible, humane approach embodied in legislation known as the Dream Act.

And former Governor Edgar isn’t the only one calling for Congress to step up and invest in America’s future.

Check out this compelling new video project from ICIRR called “Illinois Dreams Together,” congratulating incoming Senator Mark Kirk and asking him to support the DREAM Act. Here is one of the videos that participants have created:

A French teacher also shares her perspective on DREAM:

Edgar also responded to the DREAM Act’s critics in his piece:

This is no amnesty bill.

A qualifying immigrant would receive a six-year conditional resident status. After that period, the immigrant could obtain a green card, government authorization to permanently live and work in the United States, if he or she has completed two years of college or two years of honorable service in the U.S. Armed Forces and maintained a clean record. Only after acquiring a green card could an individual apply for citizenship.

Some supporters of liberalizing immigration laws contend the Dream Act is too demanding. But we are a nation of laws as well as immigrants. Americans have a right to expect anyone who wants legal status in this country to earn it and display respect for our laws. Most, if not all, Americans agree our national immigration policy is a mess. It is the result of failed leadership and both political parties share the blame. They have punted this issue down the road for someone else to solve.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates about 2.1 million young immigrants could be impacted by the Dream legislation — a relatively small but important part of the undocumented population.

Enactment of the measure would constitute just one step but a significant and responsible one.

America has been a beacon of hope for vulnerable people throughout the world. Today, we should offer hope to young people already living here who want to be good citizens and serve in our military.