Keeping the momentum going! Now is the time to keep pushing Congress to have a full debate!

The Syrian conflict and the budget crisis have gotten most of the press and attention of late.  Many who support immigration reform have started to wonder if we should pause and wait for next spring to push again.

Will those recent events determine our course of action, or should we keep pushing?   The choice is easy – we must keep moving forward.   We have the momentum now, but if we take a step back, we will lose it completely in the face of upcoming 2014 elections. 

This summer saw an unprecedented number of rallies, Congressional visits and the like – all geared toward one goal (common-sense immigration reform) and one objective (getting substantive debate in the House started).   The reports are uniformly encouraging about the breadth of the effort, the level of energy involved, and the results to date.

We must continue to be proactive, despite the fact that other important issues are taking some attention away from immigration reform.  At least for the short term, the Syrian conflict will become less pressing; the latest proposal from Russia, if accepted by the US, will let the administration back down and still save face.  (I am not a supporter of Asaad, but just identifying the political realities.) 

I also believe that the budget “crisis” has a longer life span than it needs to, because among other things, both the Democrats and the Republicans see it as an easy way to make the other side look bad.   

Even though the budget is a critical issue, we cannot let that issue take all of the attention away from the need for reform; in fact, if we want to strengthen the income side of the budget, immigration reform is one of the few steps we as a nation can take that will increase federal revenue.

If we let Congress off the hook now so that these other issues can be “resolved” first, we’ve sealed our own fate.   If not these issues, then some others will be put on the Congressional slate and used as an excuse to avoid dealing with immigration. 

WE MUST NOT LET CONGRESS OFF THE HOOK!!!

If people had told MLK that he should not march on Washington because most people saw other things as more important than civil rights, he’d have thanked them for their opinion and gone right ahead.  No difference now; we need to keep pushing and not let up.

Tomorrow I will visit the office of our local Congressional member with the officers of three local companies that employ a lot of local workers, and whose jobs depend on the health of those companies.   That House member has been in office for 24+ years.   We have written him, discussed the issue with him and so far not gotten very far. 

However, I believe that tomorrow’s visit will be different.  Instead of having one or two immigration lawyers make the visit, we are taking people who have substantive stories as business owners and who will tell this Congressional office that the local labor force cannot supply the workers that they need, and that they have tried to find sufficient numbers of reliable and skilled workers over and over again, but it’s not happening.  We (being us immigration lawyers) have given this message to this office (and many others) repeatedly, but no one is hearing us.   We think the new voices will make a difference.

This the time to keep pushing and keep being heard,  and not let up until Congress has had a full debate and a final vote on a comprehensive immigration bill.  

Gerry Chapman