Ruben Navarrette Reconsiders Position On Dreamers

Columnist Who Slammed Dreamers Reconsiders
FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2013 file photo, wearing graduation-style caps and gowns, Mexican youth raised in the U.S, chant slogans outside a migrant shelter before crossing the international bridge from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. A lawyer who traveled to the Texas-Mexico border with the 34 immigrants protesting U.S. immigration policies says 25 of the 26 remaining in federal custody have completed another step in their requests for asylum. (AP Photo/Christopher Sherman, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2013 file photo, wearing graduation-style caps and gowns, Mexican youth raised in the U.S, chant slogans outside a migrant shelter before crossing the international bridge from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. A lawyer who traveled to the Texas-Mexico border with the 34 immigrants protesting U.S. immigration policies says 25 of the 26 remaining in federal custody have completed another step in their requests for asylum. (AP Photo/Christopher Sherman, File)

CNN columnist Ruben Navarrette says he’s reconsidering his take on the Dreamers.

Navarrette offered a backhanded compliment on Wednesday to undocumented youth brought to this country illegally as children who protest for the right to citizenship.

Reiterating his past stance that many Dreamers “feel entitled” and “think the world revolves around them because they’re spoiled by the attention they get,” Navarrette then praised the group in a Wednesday column for holding Democrats as well as Republicans responsible for the failure of immigration reform.

Navarrette called his new position on Dreamers “anything but simple.”

The columnist went on to slam Democrats for what he viewed as disingenious attempts to pass real immigration reform. The Democrats do not have a real incentive to pass immigration refrom because they continue to win the Hispanic vote regardless of whether the measure passes.

“Immigration reform will die, which will please Democrats because they don’t have to get crossways with blue-collar workers and organized labor,” Navarrette writes.

Unions have in the past looked suspiciously at undocumented workers, who some view as potential scabs, and have at times opposed attempts at immigration reform. But the AFL-CIO, America’s largest union federation, supported the bi-partisan immigration reform bill passed in the Senate this year.

Navarrette’s column comes after two unique protests by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, in which people who have lived part of their lives as undocumented immigrants crossed from Mexico into the United States through legal ports of entry, then declared their status and asked to remain in the country. Three undocumented immigrants -- Lizbeth Mateo, Marcos Saavedra and Lulu Martinez -- traveled from the United States to Mexico to participate in the unusual protests against deportation.

To drum up support for Dreamers who were detained after crossing the border, NIYA held sit-ins at the offices of Democratic politicians who support immigration reform, including U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).

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