The New Don Quixote

If I were a cartoonist, I would draw a picture of Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., as Don Quixote of la Mancha — riding on a horse, charging against windmills that represent the obstacles to immigration reform — and in the cutline, I would quote him as singing, "To dream the impossible dream."

When he defends his new comprehensive immigration reform legislation this week, Gutierrez surely will become a quixotic character, fighting for beautiful and seemingly unattainable ideals. After all, there are huge windmills in this Don Quixote's path — obstacles that are bigger and stronger than ever.

Added to the long list of excuses used by anti-immigrant zealots to block significant immigration reform in the past are an economy in the tank, a considerably reduced jobs market and a scary unemployment rate. And as a result, there are thousands of other ways for hate groups and immigrant-bashing politicians to spread their xenophobia and block legislation that would create a path to legalization for the millions of immigrants living and working here without proper documents.

Regardless of how many measures Gutierrez included in his bill to crack down on future illegal immigration, regardless of all his efforts to improve our border and national security, even before he released the details of his bill, the anti-immigrant zealots were displaying their new ammunition for opposing any form of legalization path for undocumented immigrants. They charged that Americans need the jobs that have been "stolen" by undocumented immigrants and that (for some inexplicable reason) taxpayers would carry a bigger burden if those immigrants were legalized.

In one of Gutierrez's own hometown newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times, the zealots were accusing him of being "un-American," of "helping make the U.S. a third world country" and of trying to reward lawbreakers with amnesty. One of them even blamed Gutierrez for the death of an American child killed in an accident in which an illegal immigrant was driving.

Yet at a time when the windmills in Congress are blowing undocumented immigrants away from the health care safety net, a time when President Barack Obama, with a full agenda of higher priorities, seems to be reneging on his promise to fight for immigration reform, Gutierrez and a handful of his Sancho Panzas in Congress, mostly members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, are marching on.

"We have waited patiently for a workable solution to our immigration crisis to be taken up by this Congress and our President," Gutierrez said in a statement. "The time for waiting is over."

Apparently tired of the excuses of some of his fellow Democrats who promised to reform our immigration laws, Gutierrez said his bill is being "presented before Congress recesses for the holidays so that there is no excuse for inaction in the New Year."

He said the legislation is the product of months of collaboration with civil rights advocates, labor organizations and members of Congress. "It is an answer to too many years of pain — mothers separated from their children, workers exploited and undermined security at the border — all caused at the hands of a broken immigration system," Gutierrez said, noting that we deserve an immigration system that we can be proud of.

When Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra created the fictional Don Quixote, in 1602, the windmills represented evil giants, which were not unlike the ones that will pounce on Gutierrez in the next few months.

The original Don Quixote could make us believe in impossible dreams, so perhaps the new Don Quixote can inspire this country to re-establish its proud tradition as a compassionate nation of immigrants.

March on, Don Quixote! This time, the windmills will fall!

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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