Our broken immigration system dishonors our nation.
On May 1, community organizers, unions, faith leaders and immigrant rights groups will hold major demonstrations across America for immigration reform. These protests represent a significant escalation in the unrelenting pressure by the grassroots to fix an immoral and dysfunctional immigration system.
President Obama has yet to deliver on his promise to move immigration reform. The Senate has yet to deliver on its promise to produce a bill. The Department of Homeland Security has yet to deliver on its promise to focus on arresting bad actors instead of terrorizing ordinary immigrants. What's more, the lack of action is having severe repercussions and creating an environment of fear, even terror on the ground in states like Arizona, which is poised to adopt the nation's most severe anti-immigrant law. This new law will enshrine racial profiling as the law of the land in Arizona -- the result will be a racial reign of terror on our communities.
The time for making promises has run out. The time for concrete action has arrived. We demand action -- from the President, from Congress, and from DHS:
If there is no bill by May 1 we will begin an intense campaign to demonstrate the inhumanity of current policies and force all Americans to confront these policies.
Our struggle is rooted in the historic progressive movements of America. Today, in America it is illegal for millions of immigrant families without papers to work and live in our nation. It harkens back to when it was illegal for workers to unionize, when it was illegal for women to vote, when it was illegal for African Americans to sit at the same lunch counter with whites, when it was illegal for LGBT couples to be open about their relationships.
None of those foregoing struggles were won easily or without incredibly painful efforts to confront the retrenching forces of conservatism and hate. Change and progress were won by forcing this nation to make difficult choices.
The time for choice on immigration has come.
Will America continue enforcing bad laws that hurt good people, or change bad laws so that good people can realize their dreams and their potential?
The moral disaster of our present course is manifest. Every day ordinary immigrants are being terrorized by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency, a rogue agency that operates with impunity. Every day immigrant workers are being exploited, pitted against American workers in a race to the bottom, and helping unscrupulous employers undermine decent ones. Every day immigrant families are being ripped apart by the Obama Administration's mass deportation machine.
Every day the welfare of children is threatened, disabled immigrants are put at peril for their lives, and refugees fleeing humanitarian catastrophes are put in jeopardy. Every day more than 30,000 immigrants are detained. Every day that the President and Congress perpetuate the status quo, America's soul is darkened.
Every day that this continues we will ratchet up the political cost for continuing an unjust and broken system. We will reward our champions and punish those who stand in the way of reform. Those on the sidelines will be asked to choose between practical reform and the hate mongers who support the present immoral policies.
Join us in this urgent call for America to correct its course. More information about May Day for America is available at www.May1March.org.
Follow Deepak Bhargava on Twitter: www.twitter.com/communitychange
Rep. Luis Gutierrez: Obama Must Act To Ease Arizona's Deportation Panic
It is open season on the Latino community in Arizona -- people in Latino neighborhoods are afraid to leave their houses because they feel their arrest on suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant could happen at any moment.
"Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked."
- Robert D. Sprecht
What goes around comes around!
you mean those that filed and waited for 15 years, those who married a US citizen, those who are rich enough to afford a Masters or PhD (prefererably from the US), those with all the right connections.
gee....I wonder why so many people immigrate here illegally?
That sounds like a pretty vague and cute sounding term.
I wonder what you mean by immigration reform. Is it allowing everyone in and rewarding those that have broken our laws? Is it opening our borders to the entire world or just the Spanish speaking part of it?
So not only do the pro-illegals lie about ALL immigrants being the SAME, legal and illegal, they also slander us who are opposed to them. That shows the weakness of YOUR position to use such tactics.
And what do you mean by "rogue enforcement" by ICE? What is rogue about it? It's their job to deport illegal immigrants. How about the demand to keep families together, what do you mean? All people who are deported can and should take their kids with them. But that's not what you mean, is it? You demand immigration laws? What would you suggest? We've got volumes of them already, so what do you really want? Amnesty for everyone who's here illegally, right? Why not just come out and say it, why all the vague language? And what about the next 10 million to come, what do you propose happen to them? Simply open borders? Anybody who wants to move here can?
It's ridiculous to have this opportunity, and so completely fail to lay out an intelligent plan that might appeal to all Americans. Such as, for example, biometrics work cards, a program for long-term residents to apply for amnesty, but everybody else gets deported. Sounds fair to me.
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May Day in the United States America! Tis Good!
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Posish!
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R/ PRONESE
Now, stop scratching you head, check your xenaphobia and ignorance about the immigration system we have at the door and start to using your brain. CIR is for the reform of the ENTIRE system which includes legal immigration, not just undocumented immigrants.
As to your argument about the unemployment rate....these workers are already here working. And by legalizing them:
1. All workers would be legal and thereby protected by labor laws
2. This would increase the bargaining power of all workers, lifting wages for American and immigrant workers alike
This issue isnt going away. Educate yourself and be part of the solution.
Think that unskilled,uneducated workers will get visas under CIR? I doubt it, and thus they will simply keep on coming. Without border fencing and security, we will simply get MORE illegals like we did last time this was tried. Since you are against enforcement of immigration laws, there will be no incentive to register and pay fines, taxes, etc..
I suggest you try thinking for a change.
What are you kidding me? Deepak cant be American because he's stating something you dont like? Life must be tough with that hood on your head.
Legal immigrants have respect for our laws and play by the rules. Illegal immigrants have no respect for our laws and do not play by the rules. Legal immigrants are welcome. Illegal immigrants are not.