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The frustration, say immigration advocates, is reaching a fever pitch.

That is why, many say, recent weeks have seen activists use chains and pipes to tie themselves to the tires of buses that carry immigrants slated for deportation to court, block traffic on Capitol Hill and get arrested, surround Tucson police when they targeted two immigrants during a traffic stop, and chain themselves and block the entrance of a federal detention center.

More such actions, they vow, are coming.

“It's absolutely out of frustration and impatience,” said Marisa Franco, campaign organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which helped coordinate some of the more provocative actions. "Immigrant communities who are losing 1,100 loved ones every day to deportation cannot wait for Congress to end its political games or for the President to rediscover his moral compass," she added.

The people will take power back into their own hands and set a true example of leadership that the Beltway will have to follow.

"The people will take power back into their own hands and set a true example of leadership that the Beltway will have to follow,” Franco vowed.

The more radical approach to protesting the record number of deportations that that have occurred under the Obama administration, and the stalled efforts in Congress to work on an immigration reform bill, differs from the more traditional nature of immigration demonstrations.

They consisted, in public, chiefly of vigils, rallies, and marches. On the private level, more established immigration advocacy organizations leaned heavily on telephone and email campaigns, press conferences, and direct communication with members of Congress and their staffs.

“These organizations stopped having faith in any progress for immigration reform,” said Michael Young, who is a sociology professor at the University of Texas. “They’re distancing themselves from the national, more moderate organizations that said you have to worry about this will come off or how it will play to the national, broader audience.”

After seeing the DREAM Act, a measure that called for giving a path to legal status to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors, pass the House in 2010 but then die in the Senate, and see immigration reform efforts practically fizzle this year in Congress, Young said, “they got to where they don’t care.”

Many feel that being measured, Young said, has yielded no results.

“That’s what the ‘good immigrants’ have been doing for years, and what has it won them,” he said. “The Obama administration has deported almost 2 million people.”

Younger immigrants, known as DREAMers, began walking away from the more mainstream advocacy movement about three years ago, after seeing the defeat of the DREAM Act in Congress.

“They were raised by the [mainstream advocacy] groups, which helped [DREAMers] with their message,” Young said. “But then they started seeing them as compromised, and leaving them made them feel unleashed.”

Some of the more provocative DREAMer groups started using terms such as “non-profit industrial complex” to refer to the more Old Guard organizations that were involved with immigration reform efforts.
The more recent actions have focused on fighting deportations – mano a mano, and, often, at the local level, experts say.

They’ve also branched out beyond DREAMers.

Last Friday, the actions outside a federal courthouse in Tucson prompted a judge to cancel deportation proceedings.

Some 15 people were arrested after immigration rights activists blocked two buses bringing suspected illegal immigrants to a federal courthouse in Tucson. A few days later, on Tuesday, officers in Tucson pepper-sprayed members of a crowd trying to prevent U.S. Border Patrol agents from detaining two people who originally police encountered during a traffic stop.

The Tucson Police Department dispatched 100 officers to deal with protests at two locations, something that Sgt. Chris Wildmer told reporters entailed pulling them off patrols throughout the city.

“Something has to give,” he said, according to local media.

Demonstrators also have held hunger strikes and demonstrations outside offices of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, taking the battle right to the source.

They are assailing members of Congress, of both parties, and Obama, who made a campaign promise in 2008 to reform immigration in a way that would, among other things, provide a path to legal status for many of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

“The promise the President made in 2008 is now so empty that people have forgotten he even made it,” Franco said. “Unless he actually uses his authority to provide real relief, he'll only be remembered as the Deporter-in-Chief.”

Officials of immigration organizations that lean on traditional ways of pushing for change say they understand the underlying frustration that is driving the more aggressive tactics.

They say they do not plan to change their style, and they say they will not criticize the more radical approach.

“The landscape has changed so much because enforcement has been so intense,” said Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington D.C. “Communities are feeling the impact of the increased deportations. They go right to the heart of so many communities. That’s translating into more vigorous advocacy and the sense that ‘I’ve got nothing to lose.’” Read more about They're Not Going To Take It Anymore: New Generation Of Immigrant Advocates Take Radical Approach

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that stalled immigration reform would be a top priority once the fiscal crisis has been resolved.

"Once that's done, you know, the day after, I'm going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform," he told the Los Angeles affiliate of Spanish-language television network Univision.

The president's domestic agenda has been sidetracked in his second term by one problem after another. As he coped with the revelation of domestic surveillance programs, chemical weapons in Syria, and a fiscal battle that has shut down the U.S. government and threatens a debt default, immigration has been relegated to the back burner.

But Obama, who won re-election with overwhelming Hispanic backing, had hoped to make reforms easing the plight of the 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

In June, the Senate passed an immigration overhaul, but House of Representatives Republicans are divided over the granting of legal status to those in the country illegally, a step many see as rewarding lawbreakers.

Although the president had sought comprehensive reform, he said last month he would be open to the House taking a piece-by-piece approach if that would get the job done.

Obama on Tuesday blamed House Speaker John Boehner for preventing immigration from coming up for a vote.

"We had a very strong Democratic and Republican vote in the Senate," he said. "The only thing right now that's holding it back is, again, Speaker Boehner not willing to call the bill on the floor of the House of Representatives."

Boehner said the sweeping Senate bill would not pass the House and has said the lower chamber would tackle the issue in smaller sections that would include stricter provisions on border protection

  Read more about Obama plans immigration push after fiscal crisis ends

For a litany of volunteers, this was a week of hopes realized and hopes dashed.

On Monday, the Secretary of State’s Election Office began scrutinizing referendum petitions submitted by the group Oregonians for Immigration Reform and the paid private firm Signature Gathering Company of Oregon.

The OFIR group hopes to have collected 58,142 valid signatures to qualify Referendum No. 301 for the November 2014 ballot. It believes residents, not lawmakers, should decide whether the state should issue driver-privilege cards to individuals without DMV-required documentation, such as a birth certificate or passport. Gov. John Kitzhaber signed Senate Bill 833 in May, which authorizes the issuance of driver’s-privilege cards beginning in January.

OFIR had volunteers witness the elections staff as it started the certification process. The elections office accepted the petitions Oct. 4 and has 30 days to determine whether a representative sample validates the referendum for next year’s ballot. It is too early to know if the group has enough valid signatures, but its president, Cynthia Kendoll, believes it does because more than half of the petitions are “e-sheets,” or single-signature pages printed out by the voter, signed and then mailed back to the group.

Volunteers from other groups such as CAUSA Oregon and the Oregon Safe Roads Coalition also observed the election office staff at work. These groups had individuals on hand to ensure that the signature-vetting process was handled correctly because they hope the petition for the referendum fails to qualify for the ballot.

They had previously welcomed the governor’s signature on SB 833.

Many of these individuals don’t see the issue as a de facto immigration policy, but believe it makes the roads safer for all Oregonians.

Ron Louis, a 33-year veteran of law enforcement and retired chief of police in Hillsboro, doesn’t want to wade into the immigration debate. He doesn’t believe the driver-privilege card is an inroad to granting anyone in the country illegally the rights afforded U.S. citizens. He views the cards as a matter of public safety, and he points to their success in other states such as Maryland, New Mexico, Utah and Washington as validation for his point of view.

“It just allows anyone without the typical documentation to drive and get insurance. And it puts them through a testing process that hopefully makes them safer driver,” Louis said. “It ensures that they minimally understand rules and road signs, and I’d much rather have every driver alongside me have this education.”

  Read more about Driver's card issue now a waiting game

Volunteers from multiple organizations showed up Monday to observe workers in the Secretary of State’s Elections Office begin the process of certifying signed petitions for a 2014 ballot referendum.

State compliance specialist Summer Davis and her staff of two were outnumbered by volunteers with the civil-rights group Causa Oregon, one from the Oregon Safe Road Coalition, and one from Oregonians for Immigration Reform as the employees began checking signed petitions for adherence to state law. Davis said the staff was looking for compliance in areas such as whether or not the petition was signed by the signature gatherer, if the document was dated and whether it included the correct referendum number.

OFIR, which wants voters, not lawmakers, to decide whether residents without documentation should be granted driver privilege cards, needs 58,142 valid signatures to delay the January implementation of a new state law allowing the cards. The group’s Referendum No. 301, if certified for next November’s election, would prevent a law signed by Gov. John Kitzhaber in May from taking effect. If the group does not have enough valid signatures to qualify the referendum for the November ballot, the new law will begin the first of the new year. It is similar to laws already in place or being implemented in Washington, Utah, Maryland, Illinois and New Mexico.

Davis expects the state will begin comparing signatures in a representative sample to those of registered voters next week.

Read more about Officials begin verifying driver card referendum petitions

California last week became the latest – and biggest – state to authorize driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. But most voters still strongly oppose letting illegal immigrants drive legally in their state.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Likely U.S. Voters think illegal immigrants should not be eligible for driver’s licenses in their state. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% favor allowing illegal immigrants to get licenses in their home state. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on October 4-5, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

Read more about 68% Oppose Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Immigrants

About 300 people rallied in downtown Portland Saturday as part of a nationwide day of action to urge Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Immigrants, family members, farmworkers, union workers and others gathered at Director Park on a sun-drenched autumnal afternoon to urge lawmakers to keep families together by passing legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship for more than 11 million undocumented residents.

Read the full article about amnesty and driver cards for illegal aliens.

  Read more about Hundreds rally in Portland to urge Congress to overhaul immigration policies