Advocates for immigration reform are getting angry. They have tried being polite, staging acts of civil disobedience and warning Republicans that if they keep dragging their feet when it comes to overhauling the nation’s broken immigration system that their party will end up paying dearly at the ballot box. None of them seem to have worked, however, and now advocates are becoming increasingly aggressive in their tactics.
In recent weeks decidedly harsher tactics have begun to be used by immigration advocates in their attempt to push lawmakers – particularly ones in the Republican Party – into overhauling the immigration system and create a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants that are currently living in the United States. They confronted the House Speaker while he had breakfast at his favorite diner on Capitol Hill, prayed outside his Cincinnati home, and delivered scores of letters from immigrant children to Kevin McCarthy, the House Majority Whip, and many other Republicans in the House of Representatives.
The hardball tactics do not appear to be working either though, and may even be turning off key lawmakers in the House of Representatives whose support is vital if any immigration reform legislation has a chance of succeeding.
If the complaining Republicans expect advocates to apologize, however, they may be in for as long a wait as the advocates have for immigration reform. “They are refusing to move on reform,” says Fair Immigration Reform Movement spokeswoman Kica Matos. “We are determined to see reform passed. So give us reform and we’ll go away.”