The ongoing fight to provide amnesty to illegal immigrants is the "civil rights battle for the younger generation" which will decide who controls the country for the next few decades, according to Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon.
"Immigration reform is probably the biggest issue of the 21st century," Schrader said in a speech during Immigration Action Day on Saturday at Chemeketa Community College, reported the Portland Tribune. "It will decide who is in charge of this country for the next 20 or 30 years."
Reflecting on how he believes the fight to provide amnesty to illegal immigrants is equivalent to the civil and voting rights movements in the 1960s, Schrader said, "They, too, had a different background - different ethnicity, different race - and yet they had rights to participate in this country of ours that had been denied them."
"This is what is at stake now for a lot of you and your families. I feel a kinship and a need to support all people who had an opportunity to come to this great country," Schrader said.
The difference between the 1960s civil rights movement and the current effort to provide amnesty to illegal immigrants, as Breitbart noted, is that the civil rights movement was about providing black Americans with the constitutional rights they were due as citizens, while the pro-amnesty movement is "about demanding full rights for non-citizens who entered the country illegally."
On Monday, the Obama administration asked a Texas federal judge to allow it to move forward with its executive immigration action plan. Last week, Judge Andrew Hanen blocked the White House from proceeding with the plans to provide deportation amnesty, work permits and other benefits to millions of illegal immigrants.
In the emergency request, the administration asked the judge to make a decision by Wednesday, saying that otherwise, it may ask the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to block the order, reported The Wall Street Journal.
