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This Week in GOP Latino Outreach: Steve King's Caucus Takes Center Stage

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We’re back from a long weekend, and the fight for immigration reform has pivoted.  Following the passage of bipartisan immigration legislation in the Senate by a 68-32 vote, all attention is on the House and Speaker John Boehner.  Unfortunately, up first is this Wednesday’s House Republican internal meeting on immigration.

The GOP, following their shellacking among minority voters in the last election, is supposed to be opening up their tent and reaching out to demographics outside their base.  Instead, they’re buying into revisionist history which claims that they just need to shore up their support among white voters and keep voting for amendments to deport DREAMers in order to win future elections.  Wednesday’s conference was the brainchild of Steve King, who was collecting petition signatures to try and force such a powwow, ostensibly so that anti-immigrant voices could talk their House colleagues into opposing immigration reform.

Speaker John Boehner preempted the move by calling for the conference himself, and now it remains to be seen what will happen on Wednesday.  The meeting might entirely consist of Steve King and his buddies railing against immigration reform—King recently held such a 6-hour rant, and would surely relish the chance to do so again before a captive audience of his House colleagues.  Or saner heads might prevail and remind House GOPers of all the reasons why they must pass legislation.

Over 500 DREAMers and their parents are coming to Washington, DC this week to make just that case.  As DREAMer Carlos Rojas of the United We Dream National Coordinating Committee said today on a press call:

This week, United We Dream will stage an unprecedented mobilization.  We are here to challenge House GOP leadership.  As they hold their caucus meeting on Wednesday, we will be there watching and we will hold them accountable.  This is about my life, my mother’s life, and the life of the people of this nation.  The House Republicans have a very clear choice: be on the right side of history or obstruct progress and momentum.

To further remind House Republicans of some of the reasons they must pass immigration reform, we’ve put together this infographic:

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