Right-left immigration alliance frays
Conservative groups are intensifying pressure on House Republicans to overhaul immigration laws this year as the push for legislation becomes more urgent.
In recent weeks, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a broad coalition of Christian leaders flooded Capitol Hill with letters stressing the urgency of immigration reform. The tech group FWD.us released an ad blaming the GOP for stalling a rewrite.
And later Monday, the Bibles, Badges and Business group, a nationwide coalition of several hundred pro-reform faith, law enforcement and business organizations, will launch a pair of ads making the conservative case for an overhaul.
Its the type of grassroots lobbying that would normally delight immigration reform activists. But with an overhaul seeming less likely with each passing day, liberal immigration groups say their allies on the right arent going far enough.
The tension is deepening among the diverse coalition of pro-reform groups, threatening to upend the unusual alliance of advocates on the left and right that at one time seemed to ensure that some type of overhaul was inevitable.
First of all, Im very, very grateful of what theyre doing right now, said Gustavo Torres, the executive director of CASA in Action. But its not enough. They have a lot more capacity to tell the leadership [to] solve this once and for all.
Liberals want the conservative reformers to get aggressive and threaten Republicans politically. They want business interests to marshal the same energy for immigration reform that they did earlier this month to kill an Arizona bill that would have allowed businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians on religious grounds.
In Arizona, they didnt only say it was bad to do this to the LGBT community. They said, were going to punish you if you do this, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said of business interests that aggressively pushed back against the legislation. I think that capsulation is what I would like to hear more of on immigration.
The center-right groups dont seem poised to change strategy for now.
The way we see it is that the most helpful thing we can do is to work, said Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of Partnership for a New American Economy. There are enough members who want to pass this bill and the most helpful thing is to work with them and support them.
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