Cantor’s Primary Loss Due to Failure to Lead - Time is NOW for Speaker Boehner to Bring Immigration Reform to a Vote

The following statement comes from the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM),  he nation’s largest immigrant-rights coalition, with grassroots organizations in 30 states fighting for immigrant rights at the local, state and federal level.  Causa, Oregon's Statewide Immigrant Rights Organization is a member of FIRM.

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Cantor’s Primary Loss Due to Failure to Lead - Time is NOW for Speaker Boehner to Bring Immigration Reform to a Vote

Contrast of Cantor's Defeat with Pro-Immigrant Republican Victors Graham and Ellmers Highlights Moment of Truth for Republican Party

WASHINGTON—House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s failure to lead on immigration is an important part of his Primary election loss tonight.  Republicans like Senator Lindsay Graham and Rep Renee Ellmers who took a stance on immigration won decisively, in contrast to Eric Cantor who obstructed and obfuscated and lost.  The question is now clearer than ever: will Speaker Boehner finally bring immigration reform to a vote on the House floor?

“Cantor’s loss shows that voters will not support any lawmaker that stands for nothing,” said Kica Matos, spokesperson for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM). “Cantor failed to show his constituents that he could be a proven leader because he was too busy being a politician who cared only about his aspirations and not the people who had put him in office.”  

On the same night that Cantor lost, Graham of South Carolina showed that a Republican who leans in to embrace immigration reform wins, even in very conservative terrain, defeating several challengers in his Primary Election race. And Ellmers in North Carolina also won her Primary election recently while supporting immigration reform.

“The victories by Graham and Ellmers show that immigration reform is supported by Republicans, and that Americans will reward real leadership,” Matos said. “The choice is now Speaker Boehner's: will he lean in and save the Republican Party from obsolescence or will he follow the Cantor strategy of obstruction and obfuscation?  The time is now for a vote to give 11 million undocumented immigrants a chance to become full-fledged Americans and gain a pathway to citizenship.”  

Cantor was known to be the leading opponent of immigration reform among Republican House leaders, Matos noted.

"Republicans who support immigration reform MUST step up and take action for the good of the country and their own survival.  If Republicans don’t act on an issue that recent polls show has majority support among Americans, their party will be irrelevant in the very near future.  And if the Republicans don’t take action, the President will have no choice but to resolve the crisis of family separation by using his executive powers,” Matos said. 

###

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) is the nation’s largest immigrant-rights coalition, with grassroots organizations in 30 states fighting for immigrant rights at the local, state and federal level. For more information, go to www.fairimmigration.org

Causa, Oregon's Statewide Immigrant Rights Organization is a member of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) and the largest Latina and Latino civil and human rights and advocacy organization in the Pacific Northwest. We work to defend and advance immigrant rights through coordination with local, state, and national coalitions and allies. For more information, visit www.causaoregon.org

.