Members of Congress from the Washington region have heard plenty about immigration reform since last week’s protests on the Mall and across America.
And from where those politicians stand, people’s views on the issue are hardening.
“I think [the protest] causes a lot of people to get angry,” Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said Monday. “I’m not sure who it helps.”
Immigrants and their supporters, galvanized by a House bill passed last month that would criminalize illegal immigrants and those that aid them, flexed their political muscles by turning out an estimated 150,000 people in the District.
All told, a million people protested in more than 100 cities around the country.
A bipartisan bill that failed in the Senate would allow illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for at least two years to obtain temporary work visas and eventually become U.S. citizens if they meet certain conditions.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the scope of his constituent comments runs the gamut, but they all want border security and are demanding a reasonable approach to the issue, one that secures the borders and keeps with the American traditions of diversity and compassion.
Hoyer and Davis agreed that it is unreasonable to make felons of the estimate 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and send them back to their countries. Davis supports a guest worker program that would make the illegal immigrants pay a fine but allow them to stay.
“You can’t reward illegal behavior,” he said.
Staffers at the office of congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., say they’ve received about a dozen calls, most of them expressing the sentiment that the immigrants should go back home.
Anti-illegal immigration advocates say the protests have increased their visibility.
“A lot of Americans see the protests as, ‘In your face,’ ” said Federation for American Immigration Reform spokesman Jack Martin.
FAIR has urged concerned callers to write letters to their elected officials, who, Martin said, are more likely to respond to constituents than to protesters, many of whom are ineligible to vote.
“We prefer the traditional method,” Martin said.
Protests polarize stances on immigration
» An estimated 150,000 protesters marched on the Mall last week.
» Of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, 78 percent come from Latin America, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
» After the first protests, 400 people volunteered to guard the border with the Minutemen Civic Defense Corps.
