Illegal immigrant activists felt a sense of victory after President Obama announced his executive amnesty proposal in November. More recently, however, those feelings have been replaced by a sense of frustration and disappointment with Obama and other Democratic politicians they had been counting on to deliver for them,
The Washington Times reported.
The latest disappointment came during the weekend when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie joined Republican state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos in announcing that the state's 2015-2016 budget
will not include funding for the Dream Act enabling illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-financed college tuition assistance.
Cuomo said that although he did not include funding for the measure in his proposed state budget, he would lobby the New York General Assembly to include money for the legislation during this year's session despite opposition from Senate Republicans.
The governor's words did little to mollify amnesty advocates like the
Dream Action Coalition, who protested by staging a hunger strike and expressed disappointment with Cuomo.
"When we talk about Dreamers going to college, we're talking about young people who have already overcome tough obstacles to get to where they are," said Cesar Vargas, co-director of the group. "This hard work is being ignored by [Cuomo] who knows this and still is not willing to put money behind merit. Gov. Cuomo has clearly shown he wasn't willing to fight for the Dream Act."
The New York Dream Act situation is just one of the disappointments suffered by the activist groups in recent months. A federal judge halted implementation of Obama's liberalized immigration policies, and federal agents deported Mennonite Pastor Max Villatoro, an illegal immigrant, to his native Honduras March 20.
Villatoro, who had American citizen children, had been illegally living in the United States for years. He came to the attention of immigration authorities because of a drunk driving conviction in the 1990s.
The activists complain that Villatoro's deportation "broke the rules" declared by Obama in November, when he said he wanted to remove "felons, not families" from the United States.
"Democrats would like to make people believe that Republicans have a Latino problem," Vargas told The Times. "Well, Democrats are definitely facing a Latino problem that many of them aren't even aware of."
Vargas denounced Villatoro's deportation as "a promise broken" and said the immigration activists would be watching the candidates' rhetoric during next year's presidential campaign to see whether Democrats or Republicans were attempting to win votes from his community.
Denise Vivar, one of the students on a hunger strike to protest Cuomo's retreat, said her last meal was on March 24. Since then, she's been subsisting on water.
Vivar said that the activists wanted the governor to fight harder on their behalf.
"It's always, 'Yeah, we care about Dreamers, and we want them to be fully part of U.S. society,' she said. "But when it comes to the real deal, they always end up abandoning us."
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