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‘Qué Pasa’ in Immigration: House Vote on DREAM After Thanksgiving?; Obama Agrees to Help

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The Spanish-language press reports on yesterday’s White House meeting between President Barack Obama and Hispanic Democratic legislators Senator Bob Menéndez (D-NJ), Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) and Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) to discuss moving forward on immigration bills during the remainder of the 111th Congress. After the meeting, the White House declared that both the President and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) agree that Congress should approve the DREAM Act before the end of the session.

House vote after Thanksgiving? Various outlets report that the bill will come to a vote in the House of Representatives after Thanksgiving. According to Notimex, Velázquez proposed that the House vote be tentatively scheduled for the week of November 29th.  

Obama agrees to help. Univision News interviewed Rep. Gutiérrez, who indicated that President Obama assured the legislators that he would do all he could to help get the votes needed to try to pass the DREAM Act this year.

The article quotes Gutiérrez:

“we were absolutely clear with the president that time is not on our side, and that he needs to start working with members of the Senate as well as the House of Representatives and focus exclusively on the DREAM Act. That’s our chance.

“We said that we can’t risk the future of 2 million young people as long as the possibility exists that the bill will be passed. He told us, ‘give me the names of the members of the House so that I can start working, getting more support from them,’ and that he would talk to senators. The president said that he’d tell them that, while he believes in comprehensive immigration reform, he sees (the DREAM Act) as a down payment towards it. And therefore he’s asking them to vote on it during the lame-duck session.”