ICYMI: Longtime Foes Must Work Together To Protect Dreamers
(Albuquerque, NM) – Today, NMPolitics.net published an article highlighting a recent immigration forum in Las Cruces hosted by The LIBRE Initiative. Read the entire article here. Below are excerpts from the piece.
Today the Koch [Network] are putting their money and political clout into opposing family separations, seeking legal status for Dreamers and promoting reforms to improve the asylum process that many Democrats also want.
***
And they’re reaching across the political aisle. LIBRE recently spent money on political ads thanking a handful of U.S. House Democrats – including New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan Grisham and Ben Ray Luján – for pushing legislation to protect Dreamers.
***
The forum felt as bipartisan as the unsuccessful immigration reform efforts of the George W. Bush presidency. I’m looking for hope as our nation heads down a frighteningly nativistic road, so a bipartisan discussion is encouraging.
***
Silva sat between Jon Barela, who runs a nonprofit economic development group in the El Paso, Ciudad Juárez and southern New Mexico region, and Lt. Gov. John Sanchez. Three Latinos with very different politics didn’t always agree, but spent the evening having a civil discussion. If these folks were tasked with finding a workable immigration reform compromise, I thought, they could do it.
***
But on that July evening, it felt like it might not be too late to choose a different path. Barela urged people in the audience to “seek candidates who have a moral compass… but who don’t see compromise or working with the other side as a form of weakness.” And Jorge Lima, senior vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity, another Koch brothers-funded organization, who moderated the discussion, said, “The only way we’re going to get around the rhetoric in political ads or elsewhere is if we engage with each other in our communities.”
***
At the Las Cruces forum, Lima made clear that LIBRE is seeking a narrow immigration compromise before the November elections – legal status for Dreamers, possibly in exchange for additional border security funding.
***
Long-term, LIBRE wants comprehensive immigration reform, Lima said. “There will be another inflection point,” he said. “There will be another time, and we want to make sure everyone is ready.”
***
For interviews with a representative from the LIBRE Initiative, please contact Brian Faughnan, 202-805-1581 or Wadi Gaitan, 202-853-4463
###