Many Dream Act candidates feel outraged by Obama’s deporting a record 1.2 million people, in contrast to his campaign promises of immigration reform in the first 100 days of his first term in office.

Moreover Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez stated that he had a positive dialogue with Rubio.

Rubio and Gutierrez also met with prominent Democrats such as Sen. Robert Menendez and Rep. Charles Gonzalez.

“It was a great meeting. Look, I am going to meet with anyone independent of their political party or what perceived or real political benefit . . . as long as it does one thing: stop the deportations,” Gutierrez told Univision.

Mitt Romney has recently said he can “work with” the Florida senator as well in this area.

Since then, President Obama has — despite his promises to reform immigration laws in the first 100 days he was in office – done anything but that, instead deporting 1.2 million.

Now, Romney may be returning to his prior stance on immigration,  saying he would contemplate a proposal by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio  that would legalize the status of undocumented children.  However, Romney did not completely endorse the Cuban-American senator’s ideas, as they campaigned together.

Although he was pro-DREAM Act in 2008 (virtually all major candidates from both parties talked in this fashion four years ago),  the former Massachusetts governor recently indicated he would veto the DREAM Act as President. Yet Rubio’s plan is similar to that legislation.

Rubio is a leading VP candidate who would aid Romney’s quest to win Hispanic votes. He has posited his immigration plan as one that Romney could accept.

But the era of mass migration from Mexico appears, for the moment, to be over. Apprehensions of unauthorized border crossers were at the lowest point in decades last year. Legal entries also dropped from 219,000 in 2002 to 139,000 in 2010.  Instead of a circular flow of migration – in which seasonal workers arrive in the US to work, typically in agriculture, and then return to their homelands – migrants have over the decades increasingly remained here.  “Despite record deportations and rising anti-immigrant sentiment, the rate of return migration among this population is also near zero,” the authors write.  Historically, California has received the largest proportion of Mexican immigrants, who make up 29% of all immigrants to the US. The state continues to lead the nation with the largest number of immigrants and in 2008 claimed a quarter of the nation’s Mexican-born population. Overall, about 27% of the state’s residents are immigrants.  President George W. Bush had floated the idea of a revamped guest-worker program during his first term in office. That plan was widely assailed as being reminiscent of the Bracero program.  (HuffPost excerpts)

NOTE: Lots of US born kids are getting older and will be voting soon.  Expect changes to advance the rights of immigrants.  Maybe not in the next year or four, but it will happen.  History has taught us this much.

John Randolph became a border patrol agent when he was 27 because the job paid well and allowed him to speak Spanish. But Randolph’s experience as a border patrol agent led him to become an immigrant rights activist. He wrote about his change of heart: In my 26 years as a U.S. Border Patrol/ICE Agent, I caught many people. At the time, common sense told me that the vast majority of the people who I caught were good, hardworking people. I began to wonder why immigrants had to be chased like animals, and why I was being paid to chase them. Randolph quickly realized there were big problems with his position. “It was a hard job, because I knew I was hurting people,” he said. Interacting every day with border-crossers made him question the entire premise of the immigration system. “It just didn’t make any sense to me why we’d be punishing people who were here to pick our vegetables,” he said.

Randolph describes most of his fellow agents as “compassionate people” who felt bad for those they were chasing. He says a few agents had “power trip stuff with racism mixed in,” but the vast majority got into their line of work because they wanted a secure job. “We’d go do it for the whole day and then go home and try to forget about it,” he said. Randolph, now retired, spends his days playing music and speaking out against the governments he believes are responsible for a flawed immigration system. By his estimate, he spends nearly four hours every day reading immigration news. “It’s taken me a long time to put my finger on it. But, I’m retired now, and I’ve had time to investigate it further to see why our system is fundamentally broken,” Randolph said.

Randolph’s longtime friend and fellow retired border patrol agent, A.J. Irwin, has also changed his stance on the border and immigration enforcement system. He said empathy for those who cross the border has led him to advocate for alternatives to forced deportations. He claims to have convinced judges to spare many immigrants from deportation, even flouting his chain of command in order to do so. Most border agents, he said, don’t let themselves experience compassion in the way he does. “I think most border patrol agents have compassion, but a large number of them overcome those feelings or have masked them so that they can do their job — but only because they have to,” he said. “They deal in such large numbers, it would be difficult if you didn’t mask those feelings.” (huff post excerpts)

Now it turns out, according to US District Judge Jed Rakoff, that the government’s assertion may have been false. In fact, it may be that those who are wrongfully deported stand little chance of returning. 

(Note from HY: this may not be so clear cut.   There are certainly people who have returned after deportation but each case must be examined on its own merits.)

That has come out only because the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic challenged the government’s statement after the fact. The clinic filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking more information about the policy. But the government has refused to release much, and what has come out doesn’t support the assertion that such a policy exists. The government’s response so far has been inadequate. If the solicitor general makes a factual representation to the Supreme Court, the public should be able to verify it. The details are particularly important in this case because if the policy is shrouded in secrecy, how is an immigrant to make sure that the rules apply to him or her?  (excerpt from LA Times)