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Hundreds of young people wearing graduation caps and gowns waving small red, white and blue flags stood up together, held up their right hands and in unison swore allegiance to the US of America, with the US Capitol dome as a backdrop. |
The mock citizenship ceremony, held in Washington by the undocumented young people in their teens and 20s, many with their parents, was organised by campaigners arguing for a path to citizenship for the estimated 11mn people who currently reside and work illegally in the US.
The event was timed with Wednesday’s beginning of a new round of negotiations on US immigration laws in the House of Representatives, after the Senate passed a comprehensive measure last month.
The young people at the Capitol were brought into the US as children and fall into a category known as “dreamers” - after the previous Dream Act, which had proposed to eventually legalise undocumented migrants under 30 who attend university or join the military. The measure failed in Congress.
After 14 years in the US, Alejandra Saucedo, an undocumented immigrant from Argentina, is determined to fight for the rights of her three children. Her son, Diego Sanchez, just graduated from Saint Thomas University in Miami.
“We are American citizens, but we are not recognised as such. We love this country, we fight for this country, we pay taxes in this country, we give our lives in this country. How can they possibly not recognise us?” Saucedo asked.
“We have to keep fighting.”
Congressman Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois, vowed to deliver as he addressed the young people outside the Capitol: “This time we are carrying the bill across the finish line.”
It might not be that easy.
Conservative opposition Republicans, who hold the majority in the House of Representatives, met on Wednesday behind closed doors to discuss how to tackle the Senate legislation. Washington pundits say that the immigration issue could be vital for the Republican Party’s future, with Latinos a growing part of the electorate.
Badly losing the Latino vote in key states was a decisive factor for Republicans in the 2012 presidential election, in which Democrat Barack Obama was re-elected with 50% to 48% in the popular vote. Hardline Republican rhetoric on illegal immigration was widely blamed for turning off Latinos.
Next year, however, Republican House members in mostly safe districts will face mid-term legislative elections, in which their stiffest challenges could come not from Democrats on the left but from intra-party primary challengers on the right. Giving “amnesty” to people who knowingly entered the US illegally inflames some conservatives, who argue against an erosion of the rule of law.
The Senate last month passed immigration reform legislation that links tightened security on the US southern border with a drawn-out path to legalisation for migrants in the country before 2012. It is the farthest any major immigration measure has progressed in Congress since a 1986 reform signed by then-president Ronald Reagan.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner has already made it clear that the lower chamber will not simply vote on the Senate legislation, instead crafting its own version, which would require arduous negotiations on a congressional compromise.
“Immigration reform heads for slow death,” the Washington daily Politico said in a headline on Wednesday.
However, the people who demonstrated outside the Capitol were not ready to give up.
“I’ve always said with great pride that I am an American, from the US, unfortunately, not based on paperwork,” Carlos Padilla, 20, said. “But I have spent 18 years of my life in this country.”
The Mexican-born student said he would “give everything” for immigration reform. A month ago, he and other students made headlines when they met with their deported mothers through the border fence that separates the US and Mexico in Nogales, Arizona.
It was the first time in five years that Padilla, a political science major at the University of Washington in Seattle, had been able to kiss his mother. In a sign of his faith that immigration reform will pass, he said - with a defiant smile - that he promised his mother that “this Christmas” they will be able to have dinner together. - DPA