Massachusetts Fails to Uphold Kennedy's Legacy for Immigrant Rights

by Prerna Lal · 2010-01-20 07:30:00 UTC
Topics:

Ted Kennedy must be rolling in his grave. After all, someone forgot to tell the state of Massachusetts to not do the whole "Change" shabang every year. Right-wing Republican candidate Scott Brown comfortably won the special election to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy in the US Senate last night, beating Democrat candidate Martha Coakley.

As Immigrant Rights editor and blogger Alex DiBranco noted last week, a victory for Brown is a setback for health care, queer rights, reproductive health, women's rights, and even immigration reform. Brown tarnishes Ted Kennedy's historically strong support for immigrant rights and stands staunchly opposed to an immigration reform that creates a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Senator Brown even received an endorsement from the rabid anti-immigrants at ALIPAC for his hard-line stance. As Neo-Indian snarkily tells us, now would not be a good time to start a "brown is cool" campaign in the United States.

It gets worse before it gets better. We can now expect to hear excuses from Democrats that just because they do not have a filibuster-proof majority, they do not have the votes for a just and humane immigration reform. But an immigration reform that reunites our families, reinforces our security and reignites our economy is a matter of will more than a matter of votes. Brown might just serve as a wake-up call for Democrats, liberals and progressives to get themselves in gear. We have to remind our Democrat Senators and President Obama -- You STILL hold the majority. It's time to actually put it to use.

Photo Credit: TruthOut.org

Prerna Lal is co-founder and Online Coordinator of DreamActivist and a board member of Immigration Equality. She is currently attending George Washington University Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Law Enforcement Supports Immigration Reform
NEXT STORY:
Community Members Fight Detention of High School Graduate with a Mental Disability

COMMENTS (9)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.