Del Valle Backs DREAM Act, Calls Out Emanuel for Lack of "Courage"

By Kevin Robinson in News on Nov 30, 2010 4:40PM

Chicago City Clerk and candidate for mayor Miguel Del Valle called on Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which provides for temporary residency and a path to citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants that are enrolled in college or enlisted in the U.S. military. “We don’t have immigration reform in this country because a number of legislators have not had the courage to act,” del Valle told CBS2. Del Valle also called on new Senator Mark Kirk to support the bill. “We need him to make as one of his first official acts as senator an act in support of the DREAM Act,” del Valle told the Sun-Times. Kirk has said that he won't support the act.

Del Valle wasn't the only mayoral candidate to call for passage of the bill. Citing his family's heritage as immigrants from Mexico, Gery Chicago also called on congress to pass the bill. “My grandfather came here from Jalisco, Mexico, and gave my father the opportunity to succeed and open his own two-man printing shop here in Chicago,” Chico told the Sun-Times. Del Valle also took on Rahm Emanuel for not working to pass the bill when he was the White House chief of staff. “Rahm Emanuel had the opportunity to act and he didn’t have the courage to act. Quite the opposite: he advised his colleagues not to act,” he said. “As chief of staff to the President of the United States — a president who committed to the communities across this country that in his first year in office he would take action on comprehensive immigration reform. ... Emanuel blocked that process.” Emanuel has come under fire from local immigration reform activists for his lack of support for the bill. Emanuel disputed that claim, however, saying “I have always supported the DREAM Act."