House GOP considers providing legal status for young immigrants

Lori Pesta, member and former president of the Republican Women of Cherokee County

“As Dreamers, we oppose the Kids Act and any other efforts of pushing piecemeal legislation that will condemn our parents and our families in second-class status. We are very much outraged by this proposal to provide a pathway to citizenship to immigrant youths, while intending to leave our parents behind.”

Cristina Jimenez, managing director of United We Dream

Momentum is growing among House Republicans to give legal status to immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as young children, a politically fraught idea that is drawing fire from both sides of the debate in Georgia.

Two top Republican congressmen are drafting legislation, calling it the Kids Act. And on Tuesday, a Republican-led House panel held a hearing on what to do about young illegal immigrants, nicknamed Dreamers.

One problem: The Dreamers Republicans want to help in Georgia and elsewhere are vocally opposing this idea, saying it would exclude their parents and divide communities. They want the House to instead take up the pending Senate immigration bill, which would grant a pathway to citizenship for all the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S.

Meanwhile, some conservatives are accusing House GOP leaders of slipping in their opposition to the omnibus Senate bill. Critics say the Senate measure would encourage more illegal immigration and strain taxpayer-funded resources.

The crossfire reveals the fine line Republicans are walking between their base conservative supporters and a growing Hispanic electorate. Republicans started recalibrating their positions on illegal immigration after President Barack Obama won re-election last year with about 70 percent of the Hispanic vote.

In challenging Obama last year, GOP nominee Mitt Romney took a hard-line approach to illegal immigration, vowing to veto the

DREAM Act, legislation that would give special consideration to illegal immigrants who came here as children, graduated from high school and attended college or served in the military. The bill — which Obama backed — failed in Congress in 2010 with near-universal Republican opposition.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, both Republicans from Virginia, voted against the bill in 2010. But Goodlatte confirmed this month they are now drafting similar legislation.

“They had no input into their parents’ decision to bring the family to the U.S. illegally,” Goodlatte said of young illegal immigrants during Tuesday’s House subcommittee hearing. “And many of them know no other home than the United States, having grown up as Americans since they were toddlers in some instances. They surely don’t share the culpability of their parents.”

Goodlatte’s office has revealed few specifics about his proposal, saying it is still being drafted. So it’s unclear who and how many people it would affect.

But a controversial Obama administration program could provide some clues. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program grants works permits and a two-year reprieve from deportation to certain immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children.

Nearly 1.8 million immigrants might be eligible for this program, either now or when they are older, according to an estimate by the Immigration Policy Center, an arm of the American Immigration Council, an immigrant rights and policy group in Washington.

Since the Obama administration started the program in August, 17,536 Georgians have applied to participate and 13,037 have been approved.

This week, several immigrant-rights groups — including United We Dream and National Council of La Raza – spoke out against Republicans’ “piecemeal” approach to overhauling the immigration system. They say it would “leave out our families and millions of immigrants and create a permanent underclass.”

Rigoberto Rivera learned in May that the government had approved him for a two-year reprieve from deportation. The Roswell High School graduate was illegally brought into the United States from Mexico when he was 10. Rivera, a member of Georgia Undocumented Youth Alliance, opposes the House Republican plan because it would leave out his parents, who don’t have legal status in the U.S.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” he said Monday as he prepared to travel to Washington to attend Tuesday’s hearing. “We are in favor of the complete Senate bill, not piece-by-piece legislation.”

At the same time, House Republican leaders are taking fire from the right. Conservatives say the House should ignore the Senate bill and focus on beefing up border security.

“They need to stick to their guns and not acquiesce,” said Dr. Bill Hudson, of Marietta, a retired dentist and a member of the Conservative Leadership Coalition of Georgia.

Several Georgia members of Congress were wary of commenting on a proposal that had not been finalized. But Coweta County Republican U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland said anything similar to the DREAM Act was a no-go for him.

Such a law would send a message of “Hey, look, get over here as quick as you can. Bring your young kids,” Westmoreland said. “These people broke the law in bringing these young folks over here. And the reason they did that is because we had a broken legal immigration system that didn’t let enough people come up here just to work.”

Westmoreland said strong border-security measures must be signed into law before he would consider anything like the DREAM Act.

Republicans are grappling with how to avoid alienating both Hispanics and conservatives in their districts, said Larry Sabato, who directs the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

“The House Republicans don’t want to appear to be simply saying ‘no’ on everything,” Sabato said. “They are trying to break up this big immigration bill into a few pieces that they might be able to pass – that have appeal. And this is one they have chosen for obvious reasons. It is hard to look these kids in the face and say ‘no.’ ”