Teen Activist Feels ‘Betrayed’ By John Boehner
Two young pro-immigration activists appeared with Chris Hayes on MSNBC to tell their story of meeting House Speaker John Boehner in a diner.
“I feel betrayed,” 13-year-old undocumented student Carmen Lima told Hayes. “I feel like he lied to me. I feel like my story meant nothing to him, which is terrible.”
…Lima and 16-year-old Jennifer Martínez approached Boehner at a Washington D.C. diner Wednesday morning and spoke to him while he waited for breakfast, with Lima asking, “How would you feel if you had to tell your kids at the age of 10 that you were never coming home?”
“That wouldn’t be good,” Boehner answered.
“That’s what happened to me,” Lima responded, explaining that she never thought she would see her father again. At the time, Boehner assured her that he was “trying to find some way” to get an immigration bill through the House, which he said was no easy task.
But later in the day Boehner announced that the immigration bill was dead, in spite of widespread, bipartisan support.
“I told Boehner my story hoping that maybe it would touch him, maybe he would change his mind a little,” Lima, whose father still faces deportation, told Hayes. “Maybe not like, completely drop to his knees and say, ‘Yes, I’m gonna go do it right now.’ But I hoped he would be honest with me.”
