True Left

Delia Ramirez walks toward the microphone determined to make her message heard. “It is time—it is past time that we deliver on the promise that we have made to our Dreamers,” she says.

On a crisp morning in early December, Ramirez is standing steps away from the US Capitol, with its white dome gleaming against the blue sky behind her. This is a rallying cry we’ve heard here time and again—but Ramirez hopes when she says it, the words will carry even more weight. This isn’t merely a talking point from her campaign platform.  “This,” the Illinois lawmaker says, “is very personal for me.”

It’s personal because if Congress doesn’t act, Ramirez’s husband could be among hundreds of thousands of people facing possible deportation. And it’s personal because Ramirez herself is about to become a member of Congress.
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    She’s called this news conference, flanked by several of her fellow incoming freshmen lawmakers and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat, to push for members of Congress to pass several key pieces of legislation while Democrats still control the US House. Among them: the DREAM Act, which would give a possible pathway to citizenship to some 2 million undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

    “I am the wife of a DACA recipient. I am the daughter of Guatemalan working immigrants. I know firsthand the challenges and constant fear our families live every single day,” Ramirez tells reporters. “We have to end this.”

    That’s far easier said than done, as decades of debate over immigration reform on Capitol Hill clearly show. But Ramirez says no matter how many obstacles pop up in her path, she’ll keep pushing.

    As constant and controversial as conversations around immigration in Washington have become, many lawmakers weighing in don’t have direct personal connections to the issues they’re debating. Ramirez, 39, has lived them her entire life.
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    “I am clear that anyone willing to risk dying, starving or even being **** in the long journey through desert, cold and tunnels is crossing because they feel like there is no other solution to their situation. Their migration is the only way they see themselves and loved ones surviving deep poverty and, in some cases, persecution,” Ramirez says.
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    “I’m going to be fighting to keep my husband here,” she says, “and I’m a member of Congress. …. What happens to the other 2 million (undocumented immigrants that the DREAM Act would protect)? What happens to his brother? What happens to my best friend from high school? What happens to all of them who have no pathway, who don’t have a citizen husband or wife or partner?”