Key votes are expected in both the U.S. House and Senate tomorrow on versions of the DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before turning 16 and have lived here for at least five years, have a high school or GED diploma or have been accepted to college, and have demonstrated "good moral character" to apply for permanent status. While President Obama has made the bill's passage a priority of Congress' lame duck session, its prospects look dim. Indeed, even the chief Republican co-sponsor may not vote for it.

A lack of progress is causing one of Washington's major immigrant advocates, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL-4), to grow cynical about the political process. In an interview with the Daily Beast, Gutierrez said he is tired of "waiting for the mythical 60th vote" needed to end a filibuster in the Senate, and that after tomorrow, he plans on changing his tactics. From the article:

To hear Gutiérrez tell it, Hispanic leaders are about to stage a full-tilt campaign of direct action, like the African-American civil-rights movement of the 1960s. There will be protests, marches, sit-ins—what César Chávez might have called going rogue. The movement will operate autonomously, no longer beholden to wavering Democrats, filibustering Republicans, and—perhaps most tantalizingly—no longer beholden to Barack Obama.

It's hard to blame Gutierrez. As he said so clearly to the Daily Beast, "If we couldn’t do it when Democrats were nearly 260 in the House and 59 in the Senate, how do we propose to tell people we can do it now?"