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Eliseo Medina fasted for 22 days on the National Mall in support of immigration reform. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Eliseo Medina is a relentless optimist. The 67-year-old activist has a genial demeanor and a calm, unassuming way about him -- qualities that have served him well during his decades-long career pushing for workers' rights and immigration reform. When you're fighting uphill battles, it helps to remain positive.

By the end of last year, however, even Medina was losing patience. Since retiring from his post as secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union in September, he had devoted himself to the immigration reform cause, full-time. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, he left his wife and children at home, moved into a tent on the National Mall along with a small group of supporters and started fasting in an effort to draw attention to the reform movement, which had stalled in Congress.

The lack of food was making Medina dizzy and weak. And despite his efforts, there appeared to be little hope of convincing Republican lawmakers to move forward with an immigration reform bill. Even starting a dialogue was proving impossible. Medina and his supporters had asked repeatedly to meet with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to discuss the issue, but their requests had been ignored.

On Nov. 19, seven days into his fast, Medina and his fellow advocates decided to escalate matters. A group of about 50 people trekked up to Capitol Hill, filed through the metal detectors in the Longworth Office Building and assembled in front of Boehner's office.

Brittany Bramell, Boehner's spokeswoman, positioned herself outside of the office door. She dutifully promised to pass along the letters and statements the protesters had brought with them, stories of families separated by deportation and border-crossers dying in the desert. But Medina was persistent in asking for a meeting with the Republican leader.

"What about tomorrow?" he asked. "Next week?"

"All we were asking is for a conversation, and yet Speaker Boehner closed his door, closed his office," Medina recalled recently. "In my mind, I said, 'What are they afraid of?'"

It wasn't supposed to have come to this. The 2012 election results were supposed to have convinced Republicans of the political necessity of passing immigration reform. Numerous GOP officials, senators and more nationally-ambitious House members said it was an electoral imperative. That logic has escaped most House Republicans, however, who are betting that blocking immigration reform will help more than hurt as they vye for reelection this year.

In response, immigration reform advocates have staged increasingly dramatic lobbying efforts. Undocumented immigrants have come out of the shadows, activists have chained themselves together outside deportation centers and others have infiltrated detention facilities to expose conditions there. Pushing immigration reform has become a decidedly risky business.

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The Man Who Kept Immigration Reform Alive

Prosperous nations such as the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom will always attract immigrants that are in search for a better life. The problem is that many immigrants do not follow the proper immigration channels. The United States has an illegal immigration problem as immigrants enter the country illegally by crossing the border between the United States and Mexico, or they enter legally but overstay their visas. The United States Immigration Reform is specifically targeting the problem of 12 to 20 million undocumented workers in the United States.

Contact us at news@usaimmigrationreform.org for the latest amnesty news.

The proposed Immigration Reform included the following topics.

Border Security:

Worksite Enforcements:

Guest Worker Programs:

Improve the current immigration system:

The Naturalization Process:

Are you interested in receiving updates about the Immigration Reform currently being considered by the United States government? The proposed immigration reform will secure our border and legalize the 12-20 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

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USAimmigrationreform.org - Immigration Reform

AP Photo/Eric Gay

After House GOP leaders rolled out their immigration principles last week, many Republicans struck back, arguing embracing reform nowisfollybecause, well, #OBUMMER and #OBUMMER. They said acting now could trample on gains Republicans will enjoy from Obamacares certain collapse and that the President cant be trusted to honor any immigrationdeal.

Paul Ryans interview on ABC yesterday offers a clue on how GOP leaders will try to navigate around these objections. And in the process it neatly illustrates the central unknowns about House Republican thinking on the issue, the resolution of which will decide whether reform happens or dies. Heres the key quote:

Heres the issue that all Republicans agree on we dont trust the president to enforce the law. So if you actually look at the standards that the Republican leadership put out, which is security first, first we have to secure the border, have interior enforcement, which is a worker verification system, a visa tracking program. Those things have to be in law, in practice and independently verified before the rest of the law can occur. So its a security force first, non-amnesty approach.

Askedif Republicans could embrace reform Obama could sign, Ryan said: That is clearly in doubt. It depends on whether theyre willing to actually secure the border.

The important thing to understand about Ryans quotes is theirstrategic vagueness. When Ryan says security and enforcement the meeting of border metrics, E-Verify,etc. must be verified before the rest of the law can occur, hes deliberatelyfudging the dilemma Republicans face. Will the 11 million get some sort of temporary or provisional legal/work status before all these conditions are met? Or is even that automatically amnesty and therefore a nonstarter?

Last week on MSNBC, Ryan drew the curtain back a bit on this debate, revealing that Republicans were contemplating a probationary status that would allow the undocumented to work while security measures were implemented. (Republicanswill continueto call whatever form oflegalization they are contemplatingprobation, because legalization is amnesty.) That drew some howls from the right. So superficially, Ryans quote on ABC appears to be about setting down a harder line: Nothing in the rest of the law can proceed until security and enforcement metrics are met.

In reality, though, this quote is vague. Indeed, the very idea of a probationary status is all about creating a provisionalway for the undocumented to work before security metrics are met andthe rest of the law proceeds. Ryan surely knows Republicans will have to cross that bridge if reform is going to pass, because the alternative would leave millions in legal limbo for literally years while billions and billions are spent realizing those security metrics.Its hard to see how Dems who will be needed to pass anything out of the House could ever accept this.

The unknown is whether GOP leaders will ultimately decide that embracing some form of legalization, or probation before onerous security metrics are met is too hard, giventhe politics inside the House GOP caucus. This is the context for understanding the real meaning of the Obama cant be trusted talking point.

Either Ryan knows he must say this to get mainstream conservatives to even listen to him about immigration its a way to reassure them of his best intentionseven asGOP leadersseriously grapple with how to get to someform of legalization. (Byron York floats a version of this theory here.) Or, if Republicans decide they cant get to that point, it will become the excuse for killing reform: Obama cant be trusted to enforce the law executive orders Obamacare Benghazi etc. etc. so we cant embrace any form of legalization,until all of our security metrics are met.

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Morning Plum: GOP may kill immigration reform because #OBUMMER

Jan 31, 2014 9:11am

By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone)

NOTABLES

THE ROUNDTABLE

ABCs JEFF ZELENY: As Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders try to revive the immigration debate, a sentiment of skepticism hung in the air among rank-and-file lawmakers inside the room at the House GOP retreat. Even among those who may be inclined to support some type of reform, a central question: Do we have to do this now? Republicans suddenly seem more united than theyve been in months, so why rock the boat? But the speaker, in a stronger position than perhaps hes ever been, has made it clear this is a priority. And providing a path to legal status not citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants is the starting point for the latest chapter in the immigration debate. While there are plenty reasons to be skeptical that this latest round of talks will lead to anything, these four words from Boehner yesterday inside the closed-door meeting of his Republican conference, Its important to act, suggests the moment for reform may be at hand.

ABCs RICK KLEIN: Stop us if youve heard this one before Amid the cautiously optimistic statements issued yesterday by immigration-reform advocates, in elected office and out, is a purposeful forgetfulness about the last decade of immigration politics in this country. Its been a star-crossed last several years, with the House, the Senate, and the president all arriving at roughly the same place at different times in political cycles. Theres some reason to think this time may be different, but not all that much. Consider that it took House Republican leaders 13 months of the current Congress to produce a series of principles that are strong enough to be lacerated from the right, yet vague enough to avoid taking a position on the single biggest sticking point, time again: what to do about undocumented immigrants who are already in this country. The House may even pass a bill this year, but the conditions under which that would happen would almost certainly limit what a conference committee could do from there. Even this process of arriving at principles House Republicans could call their own displays the many reasons to think this year will be no different than last, or either of the times John McCain and Ted Kennedy announced a deal last decade.

BUZZ

HOBOKEN MAYORS DIARY CALLED INTO QUESTION IN CHRISTIE SCANDAL. Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmers journal, which sheturned over to the U.S. Attorneys office, has emerged as a crucial part of herclaim against the administration ofNew Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.But now something she said in a deposition in July 2013 is calling into question her diary writing, ABCs SHUSHANNAH WALSHE and JOSH MARGOLIN report. Earlier this month,on the heels of the developing lanes closure scandal, Zimmer accused the Christie administration of threatening to withhold Sandy relief funds if she did not back a Rockefeller Group development deal in Hoboken. When she came forward she pointed to diary entries she kept in May 2013, in which she writes about being approached and threatened by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. The Christie administration hasdenied Zimmers accusations. In July 2013, Zimmer was deposed during a wrongful termination suit. The deposition, obtained by ABC News, would have been about two months after she chronicled the threats from the Christie administration. When you have meetings regarding day-to-day activities involving Hoboken business with your department heads, do you memorialize any of the conversation that takes place yourself? attorney Louis Zayas, who represented former Hoboken public safety director Angel Alicea in a wrongful termination suit, asked Zimmer. Zimmer replied, No, I dont transcribe it. READ MORE: http://abcn.ws/MCsMEX

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A Second Wind For Immigration Reform - ABC News

Some GOP At Odds With House Republican Immigration Reform Plan - Wake Up America
Some GOP At Odds With House Republican Immigration Reform Plan - America #39;s News HQ - Wake Up America =========================================== **Please ...

By: MTP

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Some GOP At Odds With House Republican Immigration Reform Plan - Wake Up America - Video