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The 67 percent numbercomes from a poll of 754 likely voters by thestates main newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The poll also showed that 30 percent declared themselvesunconcerned about illegal immigrations, generating a 2:1 advantage for any candidate who takes a strongadvocacy position against the northern flow of illegal aliens.

Better still, 39 percentof swing-voting independents declared themselves very concerned about illegal immigration, while only 12 percent said theywere not at all concerned, indicating a 3:1 issue among voters who could switch their vote to back either Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel if either candidate comes out strongly against wage-cutting illegal immigration.

However, coalition pressures are likely keeping the two candidates away from the issue,said D.A. King, a pro-American immigration reformer based in Atlanta

There is nothing in it for Ossoff, because he is going to get the Democratic votes and any talk about Comprehensive Immigration Reform could frighten off independents or [party-switching] Republicans, said King, founder of the Dustin Inman Society, which was named after a youth killed by an illegal-alien driver who subsequently escaped arrest. In the final days before the June 20 election, Ossoff has dropped his initially tough rhetoric and now hes extremely soft hes trying to be a moderate,' King added.

Ossoff is very dependent on donations from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which strongly favors the inflow of new immigrants and future voters. So far, his massive spending of more than $23 million has proved to be his main advantage, and he wont threaten the flow of donations with a coalition-cracking appeal for enforcement of immigration laws.

Handel is not touching the cheap-labor immigration issue because she is lagging far behind in donations, most of which comes from local business groups and the local Chambers of Commerce, all of which oppose a federal crackdownon the supply of illegal-alien workers and customers, said King. She is the epitome of the establishment Republican, King said.

The media is also ignoring the issue, despite the poll results, King added.It is not in the [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] newspaper, it is not on the radio. and it was basically kept out of theTV debate, said King. They did not do another [question] after the first question which was Do you support the travel ban?' he said.

Unless an illegal alien is a valedictorianor victim, the issue will not be brought up by the states media outlets, no matter the economic impact on ordinary Americans, he added. The newspapers poll shows that illegal immigration is far more important than abortion, so-called climate change and the Atlanta traffic, he said.

The newspapers poll shows that illegal immigration is far more important than abortion, so-called climate change and the Atlanta traffic, he said.

Immigration is also asimportant an issue asare taxes, but less important than healthcare, which was deemed important by 81 percent of the respondents.

The immigration issue is barely addressed on Handelswebsite, which says:

True national security means securing our borders. The current immigration system is broken, and we MUST fix it. We need to build a wall along our southern border, demand immigration laws be enforced, improve the reliability of temporary visa programs, and create a viable guest worker program. While I understand and appreciate that we are a nation of immigrants, and believe we should be welcoming of those wish to migrate to our great country, we are also a nation of laws, and our laws must be respected.

Her call for a viable guest worker program is to make people think we dont have guest worker programs, said King, even though roughly one million lower-wage contract workers are imported each year, alongside one million legal immigrants and four million Americans who turn 18. She is showing a lack of concern for American workers and Americans wages, he said.

Election day is near, theres not much time, but it is possible to bump her into a [firm] commitment against legalization of illegal immigrants, said King. If shes elected, she wont later turn against the chambers cheap-labor demands, he said.

Ossoff is leading the race by three points, according to apolling average calculated by RealClearPolitics.com

The newspaper poll is here.

Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart.com

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Politicians, Media Boycott Public Concerns About Immigration In Georgia Race - Breitbart News

The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate welcomed more than 70 sophomores and juniors from Littleton and Stoneham high schools on June 2 for a 2.5-hour educational program on the workings of the Senate. Using high-touch technology on tablets provided by the Institute, students took on the role of U.S. senators and worked together to build and pass a bill calling for comprehensive immigration reform.

The Senate Immersion Module program provides an opportunity for students to engage in the legislative process. Students participate in hearings, committee mark-ups and floor debates that culminate in a final vote on legislation inside the Institutes full-scale replica U.S. Senate Chamber. Since opening in March of 2015, the Institute has hosted more than 33,000 students from across the Commonwealth and the nation to take on both historic and current issues, from the Compromise of 1850 to the PATRIOT Act.

At the completion of the program, the student-senators from Littleton and Stoneham high schools narrowly voted 39-35 in favor of passing comprehensive immigration reform.

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Littleton, Stoneham students debate immigration reform - Wicked Local Littleton

Saul Arellano gets a boost every time a stranger recognizes him on the street, pinches his cheeks and calls him "Saulito." It reminds him of the Chicago community that raised him, and what he owes them and his country.

A decade ago, Saul's mother, Elvira Arellano, became a lightning rod in the nation's immigration debate when she sought sanctuary in a Humboldt Park church while fighting her second deportation back to Mexico. Her son, born in the U.S., has joined her as an immigration advocate, serving as a symbol of why so many people live in the U.S. illegally to find better opportunities for their children.

After his mother was deported in 2007, young Saul who went to live with her in Mexico took up her mantle, traveling back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico, lobbying for immigration reform. In 2014, Elvira Arellano returned to the U.S. illegally with Saul and his then-infant brother. Crossing the border a third time to secure a brighter future for her sons was worth the risk, she said.

On Friday, Saul Arellano is set to fulfill his mother's dream of seeing her son graduate from high school. He hopes to attend Northeastern Illinois University in the fall with tuition provided by an unexpected donor. He plans to pursue a career fighting for justice.

"People actually believe in what we're doing," said Saul Arellano, now 18. "That's all I need, just one person who believes that I'm doing something right."

Saul was born in 1998 in Yakima, Wash., where his mother first went to live and work with her cousins, one year after she was first deported for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

Saul came with his mother to Chicago more than two years later. She got a job cleaning at O'Hare International Airport and bought a house. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal agents came to her home at dawn as part of Operation Tarmac, a nationwide sweep of airport employees living in the U.S. illegally.

In addition to re-entering the country illegally after a prior deportation, Elvira Arellano had been working with a fake Social Security number. She fought every turn of her case and won at least three stays of deportation. But in August 2006, instead of showing up at the Department of Homeland Security for removal, she stepped up to the pulpit of Adalberto United Methodist Church in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, vowing to stay in the church indefinitely with her son.

The move catapulted the mother and son to the front lines of an international debate. Critics of illegal immigration believed Elvira Arellano was using her son to justify staying in the U.S. and exploiting him by putting him before TV cameras and politicians.

During news conferences, 7-year-old Saul stood at his mother's side, playing with his action figures. He missed his own bed and the Nintendo game he left behind at their home in Pilsen, he said.

Still, whenever Elvira Arellano proposed giving up and going to Mexico, young Saul said no. He wanted to stay and become a Chicago firefighter. "I want to help people," he told the Tribune in 2007.

Beti Guevara, the assistant pastor of the church where the Arellanos took refuge, said the year living inside Adalberto robbed Saul of some of his childhood. He lashed out, often kicking and punching anyone who came near his mother. Guevara relied on the nearby Union League Boys & Girls Club as an outlet for his pent-up angst.

"This kid lived in fear," said Guevara. "The only relief he had was the Boys & Girls Club. I snuck him through the back door and then he became a kid."

Unlike his mother, Saul could come and go from the church freely. He attended second grade at Cooper Elementary School in Pilsen and went to occasional sleepovers. The child spoke at immigration reform rallies outside the White House, and in Los Angeles, Boston and Miami. He went to Mexico City to address the Mexican parliament, which adopted a resolution opposing the U.S. effort to deport his mother.

In August 2007, a year after taking sanctuary in the church, Elvira Arellano was arrested in Los Angeles, where she and Saul had traveled for an immigration reform rally. Because of her prior deportation and the attention her case had drawn, she was deported that same day. Saul joined her to live in Mexico a month later, after attending a number of other immigration reform rallies around the country.

As the mother and son's activism continued in Mexico, Elvira Arellano dodged gunfire at rallies, received death threats and locked the doors of her home in Michoacan to prevent kidnappers from taking Saul, she said. Saul's classmates in the southwestern Mexican state spoke wistfully of life in America, he said. But the hatred he says he has experienced here did not match what they imagined.

In 2014, Elvira Arellano escorted a group of Central American asylum seekers to the U.S. border and encouraged them to cross. She called her then teenage son Saul and suggested he join her in doing the same. They both crossed the border and were detained. As a U.S. citizen, he was released right away. His mother, having crossed the border illegally a third time, was released a few days later pending a ruling on her asylum.

They returned to Humboldt Park where the largely Puerto Rican community had rallied around them years earlier.

Saul enrolled in Pedro Albizu Campos High School, a charter school affiliated with the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. It was Virginia Boyle's first year teaching at the school. Saul remembers in the six weeks left of his freshman year, she assigned him 10 novels to help perfect his English and give him some perspective.

She immediately recognized his drive to succeed and create a better world.

"Even then he knew that his life was different and that he was actually living his own life, but that he was playing a role in a larger social drama," said Boyle, who has taught him off and on ever since and still serves as one of his mentors. "That involved his mother, of course, but involved so many issues immigration, family separation, policy. Saul, of course with his mother, was right there alongside all of that."

Later, because he kept up his grades, Saul was part of a select cohort of students invited to take advanced placement exams, for which Boyle helped him prepare. He earned 12 units of college credit.

Saul has remained an activist both alongside his mother and on his own.

The day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump who has said illegal immigration endangers public safety and has vowed a crackdown Saul joined a student walkout during the school day. In April, he protested Trump's immigration policies on Capitol Hill with more than a dozen other Chicago-area children, all U.S. citizens, who have a parent who has been deported or is at risk of deportation.

"I feel this is our calling," Saul said. "We all have a reason why we're here. I strongly believe we're setting ourselves up to do better. I'm hoping in the future I can do way better."

Saul said he has struggled to balance the demands of being a student and an activist with helping his mother pay the bills and raise his 3-year-old brother Emiliano, a Mexican citizen, who, like his mother, has a pending application for asylum. Saul holds down multiple part-time jobs waiting tables at a seafood restaurant and mentoring 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds with their homework at the Boys & Girls Club.

Hector Perez, vice president of club services for Union League Boys &Girls Club, said many kids Saul's age are often on their phones, hanging out, having a good time.

"You don't see Saul doing any of that," Perez said. "He's so mature. ... He's got a really powerful message of not giving up the fight for your rights and stand for what you believe in."

That work ethic is what led Jim and Ginger Meyer to make an offer Saul could not refuse. Earlier this spring, Saul competed for a college scholarship from the Boys & Girls Club that he did not win. But the Meyers were so moved by his story that they offered to cover tuition at the college of his choice.

"He's a role model," said Ginger Meyer, whose husband, Jim, is on the board of the Boys & Girls Club. "We are just helping someone who is doing something much bigger. He's already given so much to our country through what he has done in the Boys & Girls Club. ... This is what we would want from all of our citizens."

After a three-year wait, Elvira Arellano presents her case for asylum to an immigration judge this September. If she loses, she will have to leave her older son behind.

"Saul has a lot of dreams to study at the university," she said in Spanish through a translator. "He's independent. I don't have to worry as much for him."

Saul does not want her to give up the fight. He wants his brother to have the same opportunities.

"I've come to realize everything my mom has told me was right," he said. "Everything she fought for was right. She did it for me."

mbrachear@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @TribSeeker

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Son of immigration activist who sought sanctuary in Chicago church to graduate high school - Chicago Tribune

The fact that the Trump administration has not acted on its campaign promise to halt the DACA temporary amnesty has resulted in a resurgence of speculation that the administration may be amenable to adopting a full-scale amnesty. Some reports have identified DACA recipients and some other illegal aliens from Central America with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as candidates for legal status in exchange for some measures of increased enforcement against illegal immigration such as mandatory work eligibility verification (E-Verify) and border barrier construction.

What appears to be missing from this speculation is the underlying conviction held by most Americans that immigration is welcome only if it is moderate and within legal provisions. The lesson that must be remembered from the 1986 amnesty (IRCA) was that amnesty may have the effect of increasing illegal immigration especially when new measures that are supposed to counteract it are exposed as being toothless.

The only clear message that will deter illegal immigration is that it will not be tolerated and the government and the public have the will to enforce the law against it.

What is forgotten is that not only does an amnesty for illegal immigrants give them legal permanent residence, it also gives them the ability to sponsor their extended family members under our current immigration system.

Even if the president and the politicians do not have the political will to undo the years of coddling illegal aliens by ignoring them or by granting them some temporary legal status such as TPS or DACA any discussion of a full amnesty is likely to repeat the folly of the IRCA amnesty. Politicians continue to be attracted to negotiations where amnesty is on the table by the delusional expectation that the problem of illegal immigration can be solved by rewarding past lawbreakers and promising to be tough on future lawbreakers. Despite evidence that the IRCA amnesty fueled a new wave of illegal immigration, another massive amnesty would open a new flow of immigration of relatives who come from the same backgrounds.

If the objective of immigration reform against illegal immigration is to succeed, the pressure for adoption of an IRCA-style amnesty must be resisted.

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Growing Amnesty Speculation Could Lead to Repeating Past Follies - ImmigrationReform.com (blog)

The Trump administration last week floated an amnesty idea for potentially 1 million illegal immigrants, looking to find permanent solutions for some of the most sympathetic cases in the long-running immigration debate.

In two days of testimony to Congress, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said he doubts his ability to oust some 250,000 immigrants from Central American countries who have been in the U.S. for nearly two decades on a temporary humanitarian relief program.

He also signaled that he would keep protecting 780,000 Dreamers from deportation and hoped Congress would grant them permanent status.

Youve got to solve this problem, Mr. Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee when members prodded him not to deport Dreamers.

He said he would not deport Dreamers but warned that the policy could change when someone else takes over his job, making the only solution congressional action. He said there is clear bipartisan support for some form of permanent legalization and urged lawmakers to take the opportunity that the Trump administration is giving.

Im not going to let the Congress off the hook. Youve got to solve it, he said.

If lawmakers wait, he warned, a future secretary might take a stricter line on Dreamers and fully cancel President Obamas 2012 amnesty, known in governmentspeak as DACA.

Under DACA, illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and who have kept a relatively clean record, were 30 or younger as of 2012 and who have worked toward a high school diploma are granted a renewable stay of deportation, along with a work permit entitling them to hold jobs, get a drivers license and obtain some taxpayer benefits.

Mr. Kelly also took a humanitarian view toward perhaps 250,000 migrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua who have been protected from deportation for nearly two decades under temporary protected status, a program designed to make sure people dont have to go back home to countries suffering natural disasters.

The earthquakes and hurricanes that granted the protected status are well in the past, but the Bush and Obama administrations renewed the program.

All told, people from some 10 countries are covered by temporary protected status. Mr. Kelly recently renewed Haitis designation, stemming from the 2010 earthquake.

The secretary said he would try to encourage the Haitians to go back eventually. For the Central Americans, however, its kind of hard to root them out and send them back.

He suggested instead that Congress grant them a way toward citizenship.

The suggestions are splitting advocacy groups, some of which say they are willing to look at proposals as long as the deal is fair while others insist there is no room for negotiation.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports stricter limits on immigration, said the key is what kind of deal can be struck.

Those are the two groups of illegals who have been provisionally amnestied, but not permanently so. Turning those provisional amnesties into a permanent one in exchange for some kind of significant enforcement measures could make sense, he said.

He floated the idea of coupling a permanent amnesty for the roughly 1 million Dreamers and longtime temporary protected status recipients with an end to the Diversity Visa lottery, which gives away 55,000 immigration slots a year by random chance, and by imposing a mandatory requirement for all businesses to use E-Verify, the governments work-authorization system, to make sure their potential hires are legal.

If I were a congressman, yeah, Id probably vote for that, Mr. Krikorian said.

The Diversity Lottery has some supporters but for the most part is viewed as an out-of-date anachronism in the immigration system another program that allows immigrants to choose the U.S. rather than Americans to choose immigrants who meet the countrys needs.

Meanwhile, E-Verify has long been on the wish list for enforcement advocates, who believe that if businesses are forced to vet their employees, then the jobs magnet for illegal immigrants would dry up.

Cesar Vargas, a Dreamer and advocate for immigrant rights, said he would be open to hearing about a deal for Dreamers and didnt rule out E-Verify, but he added that supporters would have to prove it would be workable and wouldnt pose a major burden on small businesses.

Still, he said the immigration debate has been stalled for so long that he wants to see concrete proposals on the table.

Start holding hearings, start holding discussions on those significant issues, he urged Washington.

But Greisa Martinez, an advocacy director at United We Dream and another Dreamer, said Republicans have put their enforcement measures into this years spending bill, which allocated money for more Border Patrol agents and deportation officers, as well as for several dozen miles of border barrier.

She said there is no deal if Republicans demand more.

We will not negotiate on something that would add on enforcement to something that theyve been already been able to achieve, she said.

Matt OBrien, a former immigration official who is now with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said he fears Republicans who run Washington would leap at a deal that would grant a permanent amnesty to Dreamers though he said it would come with political peril.

FAIRs position has always been that we want to see the border secured and the rule of law enforced. Trump made a campaign promise that he was going to repeal DACA, and thats a promise I think he should keep if he wants to retain the support of those who put him in office, Mr. OBrien said.

The danger in an amnesty has always been the message it would send to potential migrants. The 1986 amnesty, far from solving the problem, paved the path for the current illegal immigrant population, which is estimated at 11 million.

The Trump administration has made some headway in tamping down the flow of border jumpers, but illegal immigration appears to have shifted instead to migrants who come legally on temporary visas but dont leave when their time expires.

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Homeland Security secretary suggests amnesty for Dreamers, implores Congress to solve problem - Washington Times