Wall Street Journal
By Laura Meckler
May 20, 2015
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has hired a leading immigrant-rights activist to manage its outreach to Hispanic voters, part of Mrs. Clinton’s effort to maintain Democratic dominance among Hispanic voters.
Lorella Praeli, who has been advocacy and policy director for United We Dream, will be the Clinton campaign’s primary liaison to the Latino community across the country, a campaign official said Wednesday.
A native of Peru, Ms. Praeli is a so-called “Dreamer,” brought to the U.S. illegally as a young person. She later received a green card.
“Bringing Lorella into our campaign is the next step in making sure families aren’t living in fear of deportation, all students have the chance to go to college, and that any comprehensive immigration reform ensures full and equal citizenship,” the campaign’s political director, Amanda Renteria, said in a statement.
The Clinton team began working to develop relationships with Hispanic leaders well before Mrs. Clinton even announced her candidacy. In Nevada, she came out strongly both for creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and for President Barack Obama’s executive action to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. Mrs. Clinton surprised many when she said she would try to expand that action to protect additional people.
An array of groups and activists have supported and fought for an immigration-law overhaul, but Ms. Praeli and her organization were among the most aggressive. They dismissed suggestions of legislative compromise, argued that House Republicans would never pass legislation offering legal status to illegal immigrants, and pressured Mr. Obama to use his executive authority to shield people from deportation.
The pressure included regular civil disobedience directed at both Mr. Obama and at lawmakers who hadn’t called on him to act on his own. It came well before others in the immigration rights advocacy community had given up on Congress.
In the end, the group succeeded, and in November, Mr. Obama used his authority to shield some 4 million people who were in the U.S. illegally, on top of about a million who gained similar protections during his first term. Mr. Obama’s 2014 action protected many undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents; Mrs. Clinton says she will consider whether some parents of “Dreamers” could also be included, something Mr. Obama said was beyond his authority.
Mr. Praeli lost her right leg in a car accident in Peru when she was 2 years old. When she was 10, her family came to the U.S. in an effort to get her better access to prosthetic care and more opportunities, the campaign said.
Her sister qualified for relief from deportation, called deferred action, under a 2012 Obama order. Her mother would be likely to qualify for deferred action under the 2014 order, which is now on hold while it is under review by the courts.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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