Immigration rights advocates are turning their fire on one of their own champions, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, demanding he stop taking donations from lobbyists for private prisons, which earn money by holding illegal immigrants for the U.S. government.
Moving to try to steal the immigration spotlight from Democrats, top Senate Republicans on Tuesday introduced their own version of the Dream Act to grant young illegal immigrants legal rights — though it wouldn’t give them a special path to citizenship.
The election has strengthened President Obama's hand on immigration, and Dream Act organizers said it likely means a flood of hundreds of thousands of new applications for his nondeportation policy — but it's not clear that anything has changed in the decade-long stalemate in Congress on the issue.
Moving to soften his immigration stance ever so slightly, Mitt Romney said this week he will not immediately deport the illegal immigrants granted tentative legal status by President Obama — and the Republican nominee also set a soft deadline for getting a broader immigration bill done in 18 months.
More than 1.7 million illegal immigrants could become eligible for tentative legal status Wednesday when President Obama's non-deportation policy goes into effect, and after initial fears that the program would backfire, immigrant advocates are urging young immigrants to sign up.
