Largest pro-immigrant workers’ rally in U.S. history [Edited Title]

Flushing rally calls for amnesty for illegal immigrants

About 75,000 immigrants and their supporters packed Flushing Meadows Corona Park on a chilly and windy afternoon Saturday for what organizers called the largest pro-immigrant workers’ rally in U.S. history.

Throughout the day, a succession of political, labor and spiritual leaders called for an amnesty for the estimated 8 million illegal immigrants in the United States as the crowd — 75,000 strong by some estimates — cheered and chanted “Si, se puede!” (“Yes, it can be done!”). Participants carried signs reading “No human being is illegal” and “Amnistia ahora” (“Amnesty now”).

Although most of the immigrants present were Hispanic, the participants also included Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis as well as countless smaller groups drawn from a borough that is the most diverse in the country. Third- and fourth-generation Americans of all races, including many members of labor unions, marched in support of them.

“Today we will stand here together, and we will bring about the kind of incremental and fundamental and then sweeping changes ... to make the promise of America what it should be for all of us who work hard, play by the rules and make a contribution day in and day out,” said state Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (D-Flushing), one of the event’s organizers.

The rally was the culmination of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a two-week bus trip to New York by 900 immigrants from nine U.S. cities to draw attention to the plight of undocumented workers. The project was inspired by the original freedom riders of the Civil Rights Movement, groups of black and white activists who rode interstate buses into the Deep South, where they pressed for desegregation of public facilities.

Saturday’s event featured U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), an original participant in those rides, and his congressional colleague Charles Rangel (D-Astoria), who compared the crowd to those who marched on for civil rights.

“Forty years ago we marched, we prayed and we asked for a more just America,” Rangel said. “We had no idea the history that we were making with the late and the great Dr. Martin Luther King. My brothers and my sisters, today you are making history. You are making our country better.”

Thousands at the rally came in T-shirts and caps of local labor unions, demanding stronger protections for immigrant workers who threaten organized labor’s gains when they are forced to accept starvation wages without benefits or job security.

“I’ve seen day laborers not get paid at all,” said Mark Hanna, a labor attorney from Washington, D.C., who traveled to Queens for the event. “I’ve seen people lose hands, break backs, and there’s no workers’ compensation.”

Amid the professional activists, volunteers and rank-and-file union faithful were the protagonists of the immigrant drama, undocumented workers who gave up a day’s pay to be at the rally.

Segundo Tenezaca, a 38-year-old illegal immigrant from Ecuador now living in Sunnyside, brought his wife and three boys to the park. Tenezaca, who works as a dishwasher at a Manhattan restaurant, said simply that he came “to look for justice for the immigrants.”

George Garcia, a Philadelphia deliveryman who left Mexico 10 years ago, carried a Mexican flag over his shoulder, with the message “Somos trabajadores, no terroristas!” (“We are workers, not terrorists”) emblazoned on it in large letters.

“They think we are terrorists,” he said of the U.S. government. “But we are workers.”

Even the man selling sugar-coated churros at two for $1 just outside the main rally area was an illegal immigrant. Bronx resident Juan Vasquez, who left Mexico for the United States six years ago, saw the chance to make a quick profit, purchased 700 churros and brought them to the park.

Nearby merchants sold all manner of ethnic food, from tangy Colombian flank steak grilled over an open flame to steaming trays of Haitian Grio, a jerk pork stew, and a giant whole roasted pig prepared as it is in Ecuador. There were also musical performances by Haitian-born hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean and Trinidadian Calypso great Slinger Francisco, known to fans as “The Mighty Sparrow.”

But David Lawrence, a Guyanese immigrant from Brooklyn, did not intend to get caught up in the fun.

“It’s a worthwhile event, but it’s not just today,” said the food-service worker, who came to the United States 25 years ago legally. “We just have to make sure that the politicians take it and make it a reality. It’s not just to come here, have a good time and eat.”

Title: Congress Looks to Grant Legal Status to Immigrants
Source: NYTimes
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/national/13IMMI.html
Published: Oct 14, 2003
Author: STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Post Date: 2003-10-14 00:38:40

Congress Looks to Grant Legal Status to Immigrants By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: October 13, 2003

ighteen-year-old Yuliana Huicochea moved to the United States at age 4, but now faces deportation because immigration officials stopped her on a school trip to a science fair.

Ms. Huicochea's troubles began last year when she and other members of her high school science team traveled from Phoenix to Buffalo to enter their 15-foot solar-powered boat in the fair and decided to take a side trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Immigration officials stopped Ms. Huicochea and three teammates and told them they faced deportation because they were illegal immigrants.

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"I'm scared," said Ms. Huicochea (WEE-coe-CHAY-uh), now a sophomore at Phoenix College, who declined to say what country she immigrated from. "I don't know any other place. My whole family is here. This is where my education is, my dreams, my goals. I don't know what I would do anywhere else."

Hispanic groups and immigrant advocates have embraced her cause, insisting that it is wrong to expel teenagers who immigrated as toddlers. And now, with many members of Congress thinking about next year's elections and paying increasing attention to the concerns of Hispanics, the issue is gaining bipartisan interest on Capitol Hill.

Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is sponsoring a bill that would grant legal status to Ms. Huicochea and tens of thousands of other high school students or graduates who are illegal immigrants. His bill — the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (or Dream) Act, has 36 sponsors, one-third of them Republican. His aides say they expect the Judiciary Committee to approve the bill this week.

The bill is part of a wave of immigration legislation that has gathered bipartisan momentum in recent weeks. One bill would grant accelerated citizenship to immigrants who serve in the armed forces. Another would grant legal status to 500,000 farm workers if they commit themselves to doing agricultural work for several more years. That bill's main sponsors in the Senate are Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho, and Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. They say it has the support of the Senate leadership, conservatives, liberals, agricultural employers, the nation's largest farm workers' union, the Chamber of Commerce and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

"On the farm workers' bill," said Cecilia Munoz, a vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group, "you're talking about an alliance of strange bedfellows who have agreed on a major policy that's in the interests of the industry and the workers."

Sharon Hughes, executive vice president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, said, "For the first time, we have a large constituency for the reforms."

Several lawmakers say their strategy is to use the farm workers' bill as a wedge to advance other legislation that would grant legal status to other groups of illegal immigrants, like the hundreds of thousands working in restaurants and hotels.

"We think we have an excellent chance of getting the agricultural workers' bill passed," Senator Kennedy said. "I'm drawing up follow-up legislation for other industries. There's been a dramatic shift in the atmosphere on all this."

Republican backers in the House and Senate say the White House has signaled that President Bush will sign the farm workers' bill if it reaches his desk.

Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said, "We are reviewing this legislation and look forward to working with Congress."

Two years ago a push to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants was gaining momentum as President Vicente Fox of Mexico pressed President Bush to give a fairer deal to immigrant laborers. But the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, derailed those efforts, because the Bush administration began concentrating on securing borders rather than helping immigrants.

"We are farther away from the horrors of Sept. 11, and we've had a chance to digest it," said John F. Gay, co-chairman of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a business group that supports granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. "People inside and outside of Congress are beginning to understand that immigration reform makes you more secure."

Under the Craig-Kennedy bill, immigrants who want legal status must show that they did farm work for 100 days over the past 18 months. They will then receive temporary resident status, but if they fail to do 360 days of farm work over the next six years, they will revert to illegal status. The bill would also reduce many bureaucratic barriers that make it hard for farmers to bring in seasonal guest workers from abroad.

"This is not an amnesty program," said Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat who is co-sponsoring the House bill with Christopher P. Cannon, a Utah Republican. "This is an earned legalization program."

Opponents of helping illegal immigrants have vowed to fight the new bills. "It's never time to reward people for breaking the law," said Representative Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who is one of Congress's most outspoken foes of easing immigration rules. "That's the worst kind of public policy."

Mr. Hatch's legislation would grant legal status to teenagers like Ms. Huicochea who have been in the United States at least five years, have graduated from high school and have no criminal record. The bill would also lift a restriction that discourages state universities from charging the lower in-state tuition rate to illegal immigrants.

"We've gone to high school at taxpayers' expense, and now we can't give back to the community because we face deportation," said Ms. Huicochea, who hopes to become a lawyer. "The Dream Act is not only for our benefit, but for everybody. We would be able to start giving back to the community.

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