Monday, February 27, 2012

Our DREAM Act song (full) + Obama on Immigration (FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT)



Dream to Belong  -The complete song in support of the DREAM Act, dedicated to all the Dreamers and in memory of Dreamer Joaquin Luna. Full credits here

Let's keep putting pressure on the ground, organizing, demonstrating, talking to people online and in person and reminding everyone that this country, founded on the ideal of equality and opportunity, can only benefit from each Dreamer's desire to educate themselves and contribute openly to this nation. Any society can only benefit from its struggle to overcome prejudice, selfishness and xenophobia, and every person can only grow from attempting to become more inclusive and compassionate.
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Univision's blog post on "Dream to Belong" can be found HERE and includes lyrics.
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Scroll down to skip this intro and go directly to the TRANSCRIPT of Obama's interview...
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On Feb 6 2012 Interview I gave an interview to Tim Paynter of Denver's 1150am radio. The first part of that interview was about our new song and the Dreamers and you can find it in my last post. In the second part I addressed questions about Obama and immigration reform and for those who don't speak Spanish, here is the gist of what I said:
While volunteering in support of the DREAM Act, I've come across some supporters of immigration reform who are understandably frustrated that the law hasn't been passed yet but who are unjustly blaming President Obama. Let's not forget the facts. While Obama, Reid, Durbin and most of the Democrats continue to push for the DREAM Act, (98% of Dems voted to pass it), Republicans as a whole have blocked it in congress, and their candidates oppose it as well, with Romney explicitly declaring he'd veto it.  Through the "Morton Memo" the administration has tried to shift ICE's focus to deporting high-risk individuals and actual criminals instead of DREAMers, (resulting in a drop in deportations according to this story by the LA Times) sparing many who were in line for deportation and whose cases have been dropped, including several who I've volunteered for and with. I've seen this progress first hand and think it is important that DREAMers know they can appeal to ICE's  Prosecutorial Discretion as laid out by the administration and John Morton. However any president's constitutional limitations require support in congress to pass a federal law that would offer the DREAMERs a lasting path to citizenship. We need our allies in government to make the DREAM Act a reality and we need to keep acting marching and demonstrating peacefully, creating awareness and putting pressure on senators to vote for the DREAM Act. We have to pay attention to who is promoting anti-immigrant laws like HB 56 in Alabama and  SB 1070 in Arizona (Which Obama opposed). There are too many Republican politicians constantly taking anti-immigrant positions in every state, and we can stand with those who oppose them. By making sure we are doing all we can to strengthen the campaigns of senators who represent our ideals and trying to help them get elected we will also increase the number of votes in favor of immigration reform and will help those trying to  get it passed when it comes to the floor of the congress again. Here's the audio in Spanish:


so that was Feb 6.

On Feb 21, President Obama gave an interview to Piolin of Univision radio in which he tackled questions about his immigration reform promises (in similar terms to those I  used in my Feb 6 interview).  : http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/18103030750/obama-i-didnt-break-my-promise-on-immigration-reform





"Marching into the Light" by Andres Useche