tags: , , , , , Blog

Angry Over GOP Losses, Ruben Navarrette Writes Petty Screed Attacking Immigrant Youth

Share This:

Ruben Navarrette is a syndicated columnist for CNN, a conservative, and a self-proclaimed supporter of immigration reform. With such a platform and agenda, we would hope and expect him to use his column to promote citizenship for the undocumented in our country or to push his GOP friends to come around on immigration reform. But, no, he’s decided instead to pick on undocumented youth.

It looks like Ruben is having an existential crisis. It must be hard to reconcile Republican beliefs with a Latino identity, especially when his party spent the last year demeaning immigrants and the Latino community – and it cost them the election.  We get it.

But it was the courage and activism of the very DREAMers that was a driving force in the election. DREAMers played a huge role in 2012, first by winning deferred action, which energized the Latino community to support President Obama.  (Ruben, meanwhile, spent his time encouraging Latinos to stay home and away from the polls.)  This is what Ruben is actually angry about — that the power DREAMers have built helped re-elect Obama.  So, he’s taking it out on them.

DREAMers understand that social change involves confrontation and compromise—and that doesn’t always make them popular. But they’re using that hard-fought expertise to create a path to citizenship for their families and their communities.  Their hard work in the election insured that immigration reform is a legislative priority next year.

Ruben Navarrette’s party lost the election because of its ugly anti-immigrant positions. Now, he’s taking that out on the very young people whose push for social change is about to make history.