DREAM Act supporters (Flickr/Korean Resource Center)

Evangelical leaders joined DREAM Act-eligible youth in Florida this week to launch Nuestro Futuro, a campaign to work with church networks and youth leaders to bring Latino evangelical youth to the polls in 2012.

Nuestro Futuro ”will partner with hundreds of churches in six key states (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New York and New Jersey) to register new voters and to educate the broader community on the top issues facing young Hispanic Evangelicals: poverty, immigration and education.”

“Latino and Latina evangelicals are close to 11 million people in the United States,” Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said during a phone conference on Wednesday. “In the next several months, we will register Latino and Latina evangelicals [so] young Latinos and Latinas are not condemned to poverty based on their ZIP code.”

The National Latino Evangelical Coalition, a movement that advocates for “the common good and justice in the public sphere,” will focus its initial campaigns on poverty, immigration reform and educational equity.

Rev. Peter Vivaldi, a Florida representative from the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said in a written statement:

We are honored to be launching Nuestro Futuro in central Florida and partnering with over 300 churches in Central Florida to begin a voter outreach campaign. As Latino Evangelicals, we are not here to elect a candidate we are here to advance a set of issues: poverty reduction, immigration reform and education equity. These issues are a top priority for us and we will not stop our work until they are squarely on the agendas of our political leaders.

“We are staunchly behind comprehensive and humane immigration reform,” Salguero said during the call, “and we will not desist until we get comprehensive immigration reform, so we have partnered with the Campaign for an American DREAM.”

Lucas DaSilva, who came to the U.S. at the age of 12 months and defines himself as a DREAMER, said in the conference call that the Campaign for an American DREAM ”is a walk across the country for the DREAM Act” starting in March.

The DREAM Act would grant people who entered the U.S. illegally before the age of 16 conditional permanent resident status for a period of six years, after which they would be eligible to become legal permanent residents if they obtain at least an associate-level college degree or serve in the military for two years.

DREAM Act supporters have been critical of the Obama administration’s immigration policy, record number of deportations and support for the federal immigration enforcement program Secure Communities.

Fox News reported Wednesday that Mitt Romney, the leading GOP presidential contender, “made waves among some Latino groups and immigration advocates when he said that if elected president, he would veto the Dream Act, a measure that passed in the House last year, but not in the Senate.”

South Florida Hispanic Republicans Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart and former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart endorsed Romney in late November.

DaSilva called the DREAM Act an opportunity for “evangelical youth because we are looking to promote unity, diversity and equality and a big part of the DREAM Act is that.”

“While Mitt Romney squeaked out a narrow win last night (in Iowa), what we are going to see is that the victory is going to prove to be very expensive for him, both in terms of the resources he poured into beating his incredibly weak counterparts in the Republican Party and (in terms of) the pandering positions that he has embraced to appeal to Tea Party Republicans,” Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio said at a press conference today.

“By now you have probably heard the national pundits making light of the fact that after six years of campaigning in Iowa, Mitt Romney earned six fewer votes than he earned in 2008 in the same caucus in Iowa. It is a fun statistic to talk about but it also reveals how weak Mitt Romney’s support is in his own party.”

Colorado Democrats today held a press conference to blast Mitt Romney's positions on immigration. Left to right, Rep. Dan Pabon, Rep. Crisanta Duran and State Chair Rick Palacio. (Kersgaard)

The real gifts to Obama, though, may come from a shifting demographic and an apparent GOP blindness to this shift.

Doug Massey, head of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton University, reported last year that migration from Mexico to the United States has reached its lowest level in decades and may even have crossed over into net zero territory.

From The New York Times:

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

The decline in illegal immigration, from a country responsible for roughly 6 of every 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, is stark. The Mexican census recently discovered four million more people in Mexico than had been projected, which officials attributed to a sharp decline in emigration.

American census figures analyzed by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also show that the illegal Mexican population in the United States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004. Although some advocates for more limited immigration argue that the Pew studies offer estimates that do not include short-term migrants, most experts agree that far fewer illegal immigrants have been arriving in recent years.

Add to this Mitt Romney’s immigrant-bashing rhetoric and you have a likely Republican presidential nominee who may find it difficult to compete strongly for the Latino vote in a general election against Obama.

“If Romney were the Republican nominee, his positions on immigration would be the most extreme of any nominee of our time and he continues to go further to the right and pander to the Tea Party and the Tancredo crowd, saying and standing for anything he thinks will get him elected,” Colorado Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, said this morning.

From The Hill:

National advocates for immigrant rights are hammering Mitt Romney this week for opposing legislation providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrant students.

The advocates maintain that Romney’s recent vow to veto the DREAM Act if he wins the White House will “disqualify” him in the eyes of Latino voters, an ever-growing constituency that both parties have sought to court.

“Millions of Latino voters see their own children and family histories in the aspirations and ambitions of the DREAM youth and don’t take kindly to those determined to slam the doors of opportunity in their faces,” Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant rights group, said Tuesday in a statement.

“If he becomes the Republican nominee, Romney will find it virtually impossible to reach the 40 percent threshold among Latino voters that Republican candidates need to win the White House,” Sharry said.

While campaigning in Iowa on Saturday, Romney didn’t mince his words when asked how he would approach the DREAM Act as president.

“The question is, if I were elected and Congress were to pass the DREAM Act, would I veto it, and the answer is yes,” Romney said. “For those that come here illegally, the idea of giving them in-state tuition credits or other special benefits, I find to be contrary to the idea of a nation of laws.”

…

“If I’m the president of the United States, I want to end illegal immigration so that we can protect legal immigration,” Romney added. “I like legal immigration.”

Sharry said the remarks, while intended to woo Iowa conservatives in the run-up to this week’s caucuses, will make it much tougher for Romney to win vital swing states with significant Hispanic populations, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.

“Romney’s comments about the DREAM Act will disqualify him among a large swath of Latino voters throughout the nation,” Sharry said.

It is Romney’s weekend pledge to veto The Dream Act if it passed Congress while he is president that has enraged Coloradans as well.

“This issue is about making sure that every child whether documented or not has access to the American dream because that is what this country is built on. We are built on the idea that if you work hard and you play by the rules you will be able to have access to that American dream,” Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, said at today’s press conference.

Palacio and Duran pointed out that candidates who take hard right immigration stances tend to lose elections in Colorado, pointing most recently to John McCain, Tom Tancredo and Ken Buck.

“In 2010 Ken Buck and Tom Tancredo ran on some of the most anti immigrant platforms in the country and Colorado voters rejected them both and for good reason,” said Palacio. “Now that Mitt Romney has joined in this divisive Republican tradition of attacking common sense reforms that Colorado communities need, his political fate faces the same peril other candidates have faced.”

Meanwhile The Council on Foreign Relations this week reported that immigration from Mexico and Latin America to the U.S. is down to historically low levels and is not likely ever to recover to anything close to the levels that created the anti-immigration backlash of the 1990s and early 2000s. CFR pointed to a number of factors for the shift, including a declining birthrate in Mexico, improving economies in Mexico and Brazil, a stagnant economy in the U.S., the difficulty of crossing the border and the high number of deportations.

There are many reasons behind these trends, some general, some country specific. Many point to the Obama administration’s rather tough immigration policy as one reason for the decline. A record-breaking 400,000 immigrants were deported last year, and immigration prosecutions increased almost eighty percent along the U.S-Mexico border in the last four years. For Mexico, others speculate that the rise of organized crime and violence along the border may deter some from contemplating the journey…

An important factor is the weak U.S. economy. With unemployment rates hovering at just over eight percent, there are fewer jobs for natives and migrants alike. This has occurred at a time when many of their home countries are growing steadily – at a decent 4 percent regional average clip, and much more in particular countries and economic strongholds. Better job opportunities in the region broadly — but particularly in Brazil — encouraged many to return home, and kept others from leaving at all.

Looking ahead, a U.S. economic recovery would recreate the pull north for Latin Americans seeking to improve their lot. If the Chinese economy stumbles this too could slow returns, or push more migrants north (especially from Brazil, which counts China as its largest trading partner). Meanwhile, flows from Central America are likely to continue as long as economic opportunities there remain scarce. The real question is Mexico. There, demographics have already shifted, with fewer Mexicans coming of age and entering the work force each year. As a result, the Mexican immigration boom of the 1990s and early 2000s is unlikely to be repeated ever again.

2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr)

Latino entrepreneurs, conservative policy groups and media outlets continue to closely track what GOP 2012 presidential candidates are saying about issues important to Hispanic voters.

Liliana Gil of XL Alliance, a Hispanic marketing firm, writes on the Huffington Post:

With close to 3 million Hispanic owned businesses and 62% of all Latinos being U.S. born, the issues that matter most may be working to the [Republican] party’s benefit given the economic circumstances and overall frustration with the current administration.

So often, political candidates miss the mark when speaking to Hispanic voters, focusing the conversation on issues that, while important in the big picture (like immigration reform), miss the mark on what matters most with this increasingly growing voter base – the economy. Now more than ever the Latino vote is up for grabs in 2012, and it’s up to the parties to focus on reaching out with the proper relevancy and respect the community deserves.

A Latino Decisions August poll indicates that “the most recent poll of Latino voters reveals a continuing political problem for President Barack Obama, which he must address if he wants to get re-elected next year.”

Latino Decisions, which conducts research on and polls of the Latino electorate adds: “Currently, only 38% of Latino voters are certain they will vote for the president next year. This number was 43% in February, when impreMedia/Latino Decisions did a similar poll, and it had increased to 49% in June after the capture of Osama bin Laden and Obama’s speech in El Paso reaffirming his support on immigration.”

Al Punto, a Spanish-language TV news show, recently hosted journalists Julia Preston and Anne Hoyt, who pointed out that Sarah Palin’s announcement that she will not run in 2012 favors Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, and that despite his current lead and his conservative credentials, Herman Cain will have trouble raising the necessary campaign funds.

Preston pointed out that GOP campaigns have spoken on issues important to Latino voters, adding that Romney has taken “a position against the DREAM Act and other issues important for Latinos.”

Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, “an effort by conservative leaders and organizations from across America to advance the cause of just immigration reform,” said this week:

The organization believes that conservatives must recognize the potential harm negative statements against immigrants, and Hispanics in particular, could have toward chances for Republican victories in several key state elections. Without Hispanic support, the Republican Party will face tough battles in the 2012 elections and beyond. We believe that now is not the time to make polarizing statements against this important and rapidly growing electorate.

“We need to find a speedy way to bring a solution” to the lives of immigrants, said Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform cofounder Dr. Juan Hernandez during a Thursday conference call. Hernandez said that Republican candidates support immigration reform but with different definitions.

Dr. Richard Land — president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission — said during the call that “immigration reform is a crisis.”

“I see the passage of restrictive laws by states as something above their pay grade,” he said, adding that immigration reform has to happen at the federal level.

Liberty Counsel founder Dr. Mathew Staver said, “We need to secure the borders, enforce the law and allow the millions living in the shadows a path to the American Dream.”

Staver, Land and Hernandez voiced their support for Gov. Rick Perry’s measures to support in-state college tuition for undocumented students brought here by their parents and educated in Texas.

Rev. Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said that with 50 million Hispanics now living in America, “from a political standpoint it will be difficult for Republicans to win the White House without reaching out to hispanic voters.”

Rodriguez said they will issue a pledge “calling on Republican presidential hopefuls to reject anti-immigrant rhetoric,” adding that it is important to do “away with heavily damaging rhetoric that continues to damage our communities,” which includes blaming immigrants for the economic crisis and higher crime rates.

Paul said he does not want to remove all 11 million undocumented immigrants, but insisted “we must have secure borders and we must not reward people for breaking the law.”

“I don’t think people should come here and esaily become citizens who can vote and receive social benefits,” Paul said, but he added there must be a program to allow “people who want to work to come.”

Paul said there should an assimilation program, but borders remain important and that citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants should not automatic.

Asked if the tea party is an anti-immigrant party Paul said, “I can’t tell you a thing about it because it is sort of all over the place.”

Diario Las Americas, a Miami-based Spanish-language news outlet, wrote late last week that George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism and Ronald Reagan’s “pragmatism” in immigration have been “buried by the new Republican militancy,” due to tea party pressure. The outlet says Republicans are “risking a defeat in 2012″ over the issue.

Las Americas also said that Republican presidential debates have become a competition for who is the strongest or the weakest candidate on illegal immigration. Immigration enforcement activists have said GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry’s distant second-place in the recent Florida straw poll was due to his “weak” statements on immigration.

According to Las Americas, the Republican presidential candidate will need “at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote to win the general elections.”

GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who has steadily become a central figure in today’s Republican Party, spoke in August at the Ronald Reagan Library. His message: Americans want the nation to be free and prosperous, but also compassionate.

New York Daily News columnist Albor Ruiz wrote Sunday that “Rubio supports mandatory E-Verify, has adopted the vacuous GOP mantra ‘border security first,’ and despite past support for a Florida in-state tuition bill, now opposes the federal DREAM Act.”

“But no matter how far right he goes, Rubio will never be American enough for some crazies in the birthers movement,” Ruiz wrote.

He added:

The GOP’s Great Latino Hope could turn out not to be such a good idea after all.

A poll conducted by Latino Decisions on the eve of last November’s election found 78% of Cuban-Americans would vote for Rubio, but only 40% of non-Cuban Latinos would do the same. And this was during his moderate phase.

That in-state tuition law that sailed through the Texas Legislature and across the governor’s desk 10 years ago continues haunting Rick Perry’s presidential campaign in strange new ways, most recently with a hardline anti-illegal immigration group protesting outside a Perry fundraiser, and new complaints about social media censorship from the governor’s supporters.

In Charlotte, N.C., right now, outside a Perry fundraiser at San Antonio’s Modern Mexican restaurant, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is mounting an afternoon protest “designed to forewarn the 81% of Americans found in numerous polls to oppose in-state tuition for illegal aliens about Rick Perry’s unpopular support for illegal immigrants.”

The group announced Thursday that the protest was just one in a nationwide series, designed to tell the world that Perry, in the words of ALIPAC President William Gheen, supports the “illegal immigration invasion of America.”

“Close examination of Rick Perry shows a man that wants to appear to be tough on illegal immigration while in truth he is supporting the illegal immigration invasion of America,” said William Gheen. “Our protest today and the coming protests across the nation are designed to warn voters about Rick Perry’s real positions on illegal immigration before it is too late.”

The group got even more publicity than it bargained for earlier this week, when Americans for Rick Perry’s social media director Clint Cox flagged a Facebook post on the ALIPAC protest to have it removed, the latest awkward attempt from the governor’s camp to avoid negative social media mentions. ALIPAC seized on the mini-scandal.

This flap over the 2001 law granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants has also offered a taller soapbox to tea party groups in Texas that have been asking Perry to bring the Texas Legislature back to harshen up the state’s immigration laws.

It’s a drumbeat they’ve kept up since just after the last legislative session ended, but on Thursday Politico’s Reid Epstein called it “a new front” for Perry’s immigration defense, with the groups’ plans to offer yet another call for a special immigration session of the Legislature. As Dallas-area tea party leader Katrina Pierson suggested to Politico, it’d be a chance for Perry to “clarify his position on illegal immigration.”

“If he can’t get the job done in Texas with a supermajority, with something that he says is a priority, how is he going to get that done in D.C.?” Pierson said. “You have control of everything in Texas, and you still can’t it done. He doesn’t want to get it done.

In an August 2001 speech given during a border summit, Gov. Rick Perry delivered a stirring endorsement of a law passed earlier that year with bipartisan support in the Texas Legislature:

We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, “we don’t care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there.” And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That’s why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate. Those young minds are a part of a new generation of leaders, the doors of higher education must be open to them. The message is simple: educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.

Complete with a Spanish “yes we can,” that speech used rhetoric very similar to language from Democratic politicians today to support the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — otherwise known as the DREAM Act.

Perry signed House Bill 1403 into law a few months earlier, effectively granting undocumented immigrants in Texas the ability to receive in-state tuition at publicly funded colleges and universities.

A decade later, that law is the centerpiece of growing conservative criticism of Perry’s record as Texas governor.

While the law has been compared to the federal version of the proposed DREAM Act, the Texas version has significant differences. The law requires student to reside in Texas with a parent while attending high school, and graduate from a high school or receive a GED in Texas after living in the state for at least three years.

An amendment by Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) requires students to sign an affidavit indicating they will apply for permanent resident status as soon as they can — a measure similar to the federal bill.

The federal DREAM Act, though, is much larger in scope, and requires much more of undocumented students hoping to qualify. The bill’s most recent incarnation requires students to prove that they arrived in the United States before their 16th birthday, and requires them to register for the military draft. There is also the so-called “good moral character” requirement, a sort of criminal background check.

The Texas bill was introduced by former state Rep. Rick Noriega (D-Houston), who would run an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate against Sen. John Cornyn six years later. Noriega had 19 co-authors on his bill, which passed unanimously through the House Higher Education Committee, where nobody testified against the bill.

State Rep. Will Hartnett (R-Dallas) was the only House member to vote against the bill, joined by Mike Jackson (R- Flower Mound), Jane Nelson (R- Denton), and Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) in the Senate.

Lately, Perry has made a point of mentioning how little resistance the bill met at the time.

As the Texas Independent reported in 2010, Noriega said the passed thanks to “the efforts of a very large coalition of businesses, chambers of commerce and advocacy groups. The lone voice in opposition would always be the anti-immigrant community.”

The support for the bill was bipartisan, including some of the staunchest immigration opponents the Capitol has to offer — even state Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler), who’s known for far-right positions on undocumented immigrants, Sharia law and the enduring mystery of President Obama’s birth certificate.

But other Republicans have grilled Perry in presidential debates over the Texas version of the DREAM Act. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he “just can’t follow” the argument for offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, calling it a “$100,000 discount if you’re illegal aliens,” and a “magnet” that draws people into the country.

According to the Dallas Morning News, last year Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board reported that 12,138 undocumented students, or about one percent of all Texas college students, received in-state tuition.

As the Teas Independent reported, even Texas’ Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst piled onto the criticism of the 2001 law, saying that he “would not have signed that law.”
The National Review Online’s The Corner blog called the Texas law “mini-amnesty.”

Perry defended the Texas law during last week’s Fox News/Google debate. “I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said, if you would limit access to education for people who’ve come to the country through “no fault of their own.”

Meanwhile, Perry also opposes a federal DREAM Act, sticking to his 10th Amendment guns, saying the federal law is “just amnesty and I’m not for amnesty.”

As the Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry has walked both sides of the immigration line, at one point implementing a Texas-style Dream Act that some say was the model for the national act. On the other hand, he’s also pushed for local police to have more authority to check on people’s immigration status.

One of those positions will play like gangbusters in the GOP primary and the other one will appeal to Latino voters in the general election if he gets that far. For both groups, though, there is that other Rick Perry who will always be on their minds.

In fact, Somos Republican leader Dee Dee Garcia Blase has told The Colorado Independent that Latinos have long considered Perry a friend, but that his recent positions have begun alienating Latinos.

Talking Points Memo sums up Perry’s Latino problem or immigration problem eloquently noting how swiftly he has gone from Latino hero as a new governor to Latino enemy as a long-serving governor with his eye on a bigger prize.

In August 2001, Governor Rick Perry stopped by Edinburg, Texas, to deliver a speech before a gathering of Mexican and United States officials on issue related to the border. Emphasizing the cultural and economic connections between the two nations, Perry called for new investment in infrastructure and an easing of restrictions on border traffic to further deepen ties. He also took a moment to tout a groundbreaking new law that allowed children of illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition at Texas universities.

“We must say to every Texas child learning in a Texas classroom, ‘we don’t care where you come from, but where you are going, and we are going to do everything we can to help you get there.’” he said. “And that vision must include the children of undocumented workers. That’s why Texas took the national lead in allowing such deserving young minds to attend a Texas college at a resident rate. Those young minds are a part of a new generation of leaders, the doors of higher education must be open to them. The message is simple: educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.”

A decade later in June 2011, Perry traveled to San Antonio to offer an address to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials at their annual convention. This time, however, immigrant rights activists were gathered outside the building to protest and he faced a frosty, even hostile, reception from the guests inside. Perry again emphasized his pride in the state’s Hispanic population, but it was no use — a failed attempt by the governor to crack down on “sanctuary cities” with legislation that would free police officers to question people on their immigration status had poisoned the atmosphere completely. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who spoke before the governor, condemned Perry’s bill as “easily the most anti-Latino agenda in more than a generation.”

And while it is easy to love a candidate who hasn’t actually announced he’s running, the closer Perry gets to an actual announcement, the more people bring out the dirt.

A story today in The Texas Independent notes that Perry’s potential troubles extend far beyond immigration into such areas as his friendship with a prominent Muslim and his loose lips on the subject of secession.

Almost 200 undocumented young people from across the U.S. gathered in the Russell Senate Office building in Washington, D.C., today to argue for the passage of the DREAM Act and a stay on the deportation of the people who might qualify for it if it becomes law.

Dressed in college graduation caps and gowns with the colors and logos of many different universities on display, the undocumented youth heard testimony from some of their peers who are currently facing deportation, as well as an ‘invocation’ by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, and a ‘commencement address’ from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who recently revealed in the pages of New York Times Magazine that he was undocumented and entered the country illegally when he was a child.

Many of the young people who spoke echoed Vargas’ story of having to live a life in secret, avoiding the authorities and situations requiring legal documentation at all cost. The event’s ‘valedictorian’, Mandeep Chahal, is an undocumented immigrant born in India who is an honors student at UC Davis and has lived in California since she was six; nevertheless, she was scheduled to be deported after her mother was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year. Chahal and her mother lived for months with electronic monitoring bracelets around their ankles, but last Tuesday, they were granted a reprieve by ICE after a Facebook campaign mobilized in favor of allowing Chahal to stay — and after ICE director John Morton issued a memo encouraging discretion on the part of immigration officials when deciding who to deport.

As The Florida Independent reported, there is no good estimate of how many people who might qualify for legalization under the DREAM Act are currently undergoing deportation proceedings. What is certain is that the Obama administration has been deporting more people per year than any other administration, and half of the people deported have committed no crime other than being in the country without authorization. The graduation ceremony came the day after the first Senate committee hearing on the DREAM Act, where two cabinet-level Obama administration officials, Dept. of Education secretary Arne Duncan and Dept. of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano, testified in favor of the DREAM Act’s passage. In a press conference today, President Obama reiterated his support for the bill.

However, Chahal and other speakers at today’s ceremony repeatedly emphasized the power of the executive branch to alleviate the risk of deportation for law-abiding undocumented immigrants: “President Obama has made it clear that he fully supports the DREAM Act… and yet he hasn’t acted,” Chahal said. “He has the power to stop the deportations of people like me. He can bring relief so that no family has to go through what mine has. He can end our pain, but he still continues to deport DREAMers.”

Sen. Durbin also argued that the role of the executive branch is critical, but called Morton’s memo unprecedented: “They [the Obama administration] came up with this important memo, which for the first time puts in writing that they are going to establish a policy of deportation which will take into consideration those who will be eligible for the DREAM Act… we are going to hold them to this promise, that they are for education not deportation.”

Despite the support of Durbin and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the majority whip and leader of the Senate, respectively, the DREAM Act has little chance of becoming law this congressional term, given the Republican-controlled House’s general opposition to legalization and citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Last week, House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said he would introduce a bill invalidating the Morton memo, which would presumably mean that ICE would have no choice but to deport Vargas, Chahal and the other undocumented youth present at the ceremony.

Nevertheless, after the ceremony the ‘deportation class of 2011’ marched not towards the House of Representatives office buildings, but towards the White House.

The record level of deportations being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement includes an unknown number of immigrants who came to the U.S. at a young age, call this country home and are not aware that they are eligible for deferred action.

While deferred action is not limited to youth, according to the Immigration Policy Center, “Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), for instance, last year asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to defer the removal of young people who qualified for legal permanent residence until such time as their legislation, the DREAM Act, became law.”

Many young people who now face deportation proceedings would be eligible for the DREAM Act, which would grant unauthorized immigrants who entered the U.S. before the age of 16 conditional legal-resident status for a period of six years, after which they would be eligible to become legal permanent residents, if they obtain at least an associate-level college degree or serve two years in the military.

DREAM Activists — a resource network for undocumented students — has been working on deportation cases of students for a long time, along with law students and immigration attorneys.

“As we started getting more cases we realized we don’t have the resources to handle all cases and they will fall through the cracks,” Mohammad Abdollahi of DREAM Activist tells The Florida Independent, “so we sat down and came up with a guide so people can figure it out by themselves.”

The Asian Law Caucus, Educators for Fair Consideration, the National Immigrant Youth Alliance and DREAM Activist together released a Removal Defense Guide (.pdf) earlier this month.

“With over 60 pages of legal and organizing support from various successful public cases, the guide aims to provide undocumented youth, families, and lawyers with the essentials for deportation defense,” according to a press release issued by the Asian Law Caucus.

The guide focuses primarily on the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to exercise prosecutorial discretion by granting deferred action to students who are facing removal from the United States.

Abdollahi says that the manual is limited to discussing prosecutorial discretion when a DREAM Act student has a final Order of Removal or is in Removal Proceedings with no other legal options. He adds that even though the guide is targeted at youth, it works for families as well.

Abdollahi tells the Independent it is frustrating that under President Obama so many students are being deported. He explains that DREAM Activist has had cases in which deferred action was granted from Washington, D.C., but local immigration officers reject the decision. If deporting students is not a priority, adds Abdollahi, we hope the Obama administration would reach out to lower-level immigration officers.

Other education and immigrant advocacy organizations have also recently called on Obama to use his executive authority to stop the deportation of young undocumented immigrants who would be eligible for the DREAM Act. In the aftermath of Obama’s speech on immigration, several immigrant advocacy organizations have said the president must lead.

“Our biggest campaign goal is to get Obama to issue an executive order for deferred action for all DREAMers,” Abdollahi adds. “It is something he can do but he doesn’t want to do.”

Senator Minority Leader Mike Kopp is leading opposition to the so-called Asset legislation that would grant in-state university tuition to students who have attended at least three years of high school in Colorado but who are neither U.S. citizens nor legal residents of the country. The Littleton Republican wrote an op-ed for the Pueblo Chieftan last week making a case that drew fire from conservative Latino group Somos Republicans. In a release Friday, the group said Kopp was demonizing Colorado youth with preposterous arguments based on shoddy research.

“Senator Mike Kopp is demonizing immigrants … and he is setting Colorado up for some very expensive lawsuits,” wrote Colorado Director Steve Rodriguez. “Senator Kopp is not being fiscally responsible because he has not done his due diligence with regard to other states which have failed with the ideas he is currently proposing against immigrant tuition bills.”

Senate Bill 126 (pdf) was introduced this session by Pueblo Democrat Angela Giron and education specialist Denver Democrat Mike Johnston. The bill would offer in-state tuition rates at Colorado universities and colleges to undocumented students provided they completed their last three years of high school in Colorado and were accepted at a state institute of higher education within a year of graduation. The students would not be eligible for any state-based financial aid. Their eligibility for in-state tuition is based on their high school attendance not on residency and their in-state tuition eligibility in no way grants them legal residency for immigration or citizenship purposes. The students must also submit affidavits promising to apply for citizenship as soon as they are eligible.

Current estimates suggest roughly a couple thousand undocumented Colorado high schoolers graduate each year. Analysts have suggested roughly 400 annually would take advantage of the in-state tuition program. Many of those students now attend college in other states where in-state tuition is available to them, like New Mexico, or they don’t go to college. Supporters of Giron’s bill say Colorado is punishing some of its best and brightest due to no fault committed by the students– children raised here who know no other country as home, who have shined academically and who are being effectively exiled from the professional futures they have worked for and deserve to secure.

Kopp argued in his op-ed that in-state tuition is subsidized tuition and that the state would be losing money by granting more students those low rates. He said the undocumented students would be taking in-state slots at universities from other qualified students. He also said that the bill would be raising undocumented student expectations for citizenship unfairly, that it would violate federal and state laws and that it would attract more illegal immigrants to Colorado.

“There are more than nine states in our Union that support this type of law,” wrote Rodriguez, ” two of which are California and Nebraksa, where its constitutionality was challenged, however, the law was ultimately upheld.”

He points to the recent Martinez v. Regents of the University of California decision, where the judge ruled that basing in-state tuition on high school attendance violated no federal laws. The ruling challenged earlier rulings where tuition rates were assumed to be based on residency instead of high school attendance.

Rodriguez said the legal precedent established by Martinez thins Kopp’s arguments. Rodriguez said it is also a fact that illegal immigrants are not streaming into the nine states that presently offer in-state tuition to undocumented students. Kopp’s concern is “preposterous,” he said.

Former conservative Colorado Springs state senator and longtime anti-illegal immigration warrior Dave Schultheis weighed in on the Asset bill and the Somos response to Kopp at his blog Saturday. He ignored the legal case made by Somos based on the Martinez case and said that the bill amounted to mere election maneuvering on the part of its Democratic sponsors.

“In an attempt to continue to increase their favorability quotient with Colorado’s Hispanic population in the hope of increasing their voting base, Colorado’s Democrats have introduced SB11-126, a bill to allow illegal residents to attend a public university. While I realize that the in-state tuition issue is very emotional for some, nevertheless adherence to the law should take precedence.”

Somos founder Dee Dee Garcia Blasé fired back from the Somos blog, lamenting Schultheis’s view on the legal precedent for the Asset law and suggesting that Schultheis, like so many Republicans, was again working to alienate Latinos by brushing off an issue taken very seriously by the Latino community.

“What is holding you back from increasing the favorability quotient with Latinos?” she asked. “You and fellow Republicans can take personal responsibility for the legislative decisions you make, too.”

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