Immigrant Advocates Vow To ‘Punish’ House Republicans On Immigration Reform Inaction

Immigrant-advocate groups which make up the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) pledged on Tuesday to inaugurate a new phase of their efforts, saying they would move from trying to persuade lawmakers to pass legislation to punishing those who block it. During a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Kira Matos, spokeswoman for FIRM, told MSNBC, “From now on, any lawmaker who does not support comprehensive immigration reform should expect relentless and constant confrontations that will escalate until they agree to support immigration reform.”

On Monday, Matos told Politico that “persuasion only got us so far” with House Republicans, who appear unlikely to act on immigration this year after conservative voices rose up in opposition to the party leadership’s earlier gestures in that direction. “What we are now doing is to switch tactics from persuasion to punishment.” Matos also vowed to 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, that the groups would engage in “relentless and constant confrontations that will escalate until they agree to support immigration reform.”

NBC News reports that during a House subcommittee hearing on asylum fraud, protestors interrupted the proceedings, chanting “Citizenship now, families together” before they were removed by guards. The network also notes that while the groups are changing strategy on Republicans who are holding up immigration reform, in the meantime, they’ll keep pushing President Obama to order a temporary halt to deportations – “bold and immediate action”, according to Gustavo Torres, director of Maryland-based CASA in Action, “to stop these attacks on our communities.”