Pablo Manríquez

A small group of immigrant rights activists has been camped outside Vice President Kamala Harris’s house in Washington, D.C. since last Thursday, calling on Harris to overrule the Senate Parliamentarian and include immigrant relief in the budget bill being negotiated in Congress.

Futuro Media Group, the Harlem-based publisher of Latino Rebels, received a White House press pass Thursday afternoon for Washington correspondent Pablo Manríquez. The White House press pass gives Futuro what’s known in the Beltway as “double credential” to cover the federal government with full Washington press access.

Five members of the House Hispanic Caucus, all Democrats, held a press conference on Wednesday to advocate for permanent immigrant relief provisions in the Democrats’ sprawling budget bill currently being negotiated on Capitol Hill.

The two-term congresswoman representing parts of the Bronx and Queens has relied largely on small-dollar donors to raise money online, gaining an impressive $1,679,781 in the third quarter of this year, according to FEC fundraising disclosures.

Latino Rebels asked a half-dozen members of the upper chamber on Monday and Tuesday if undocumented immigrants will be eligible for mainstream tenants of the Build Back Better Bill, like child tax credit checks, paid family leave, and subsidized community college education.

On Monday, the Senate voted to confirm the nomination of Judge Gustavo Gelpí to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit based in Boston, making him the second Puerto Rican judge to be a member of that court.

In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Dr. Raul Ruiz (D-CA), said he’s seeking a bipartisan solution for permanent immigrant relief.

A community of Indian immigrants is living in something akin to immigration purgatory due to a visa backlog. This group of over a million is not undocumented. They are here with permission from the federal government and were admitted at customs checkpoints on visas that are family- or employment-based.

Congressional Black Caucus members continue to unite around immigrant relief, especially following the recent harsh treatment of Haitian migrants by ICE and Border Patrol agents.

On Friday Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and six other House Democrats from New York signed on to a letter urging the Democratic leadership in Congress to include immigration provisions in the sprawling social spending plan being negotiated on Capitol Hill.

Unless Padilla or the other Latino senators take a hard line on immigration reform, a legalization bill is unlikely to be enacted during the current Congress.

Hundreds of protesters turned up at Lafayette Square in front of the White House on Thursday for a midday “escalation rally” for immigrant rights. Dozens were arrested.

“I considered myself a DREAMer,” says Dip Patel, 25, founder of Improve the Dream, an organization advocating for immigrant youth who grew up as dependents of long-term visa holders but then lose their legal status in the United States when they turn 21 years old.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) tells Latino Rebels that immigration reform is “too big” to fit into the massive social spending bill currently being negotiated by Congressional Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Bogotá-born and raised, Juan Daniel Pachón Silva escaped the civil war in Colombia not a moment too soon.

Asked by Latino Rebels for a crowd count, a rally organizer said, “I don’t know, but this is way bigger than we expected.”

Two Congressional Hispanic Caucus stalwarts in the House of Representatives are tying their votes on Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget deal to immigration reform.

“For me, this ruling does not mean that this process is over. We’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer,” Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senate Democrats returned to Capitol Hill this week, where they expressed confidence in the prospects of passing a legalization program for up to eight million immigrants through the budget deal currently making its way through both chambers of Congress.

“You don’t have to do what the Parliamentarian says,” a senior aide familiar with the Democrats’ budget reconciliation strategy told Latino Rebels on Wednesday. “It’s just practice to do so.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants hangs in the balance on Capitol Hill this week as congressional committees take the formal steps to advance the various components of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation proposal.