Posted on 04/09/2006 4:36:47 PM PDT by Mark Felton
Events are planned Monday in 90 cities to show immigrant strength - Latino and other.
LOS ANGELES – In Los Angeles, Eun Sook Lee will march on behalf of Korean illegal immigrants, at least 50,000, living in southern California. On Boston Common, Punam Rogers will join other Indian émigrés, as well as business clients and students from China, Germany, and Britain. In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Ivalier Duvra will take to the streets to draw attention to Haitian newcomers who he says need refugee status.
Coming on the heels of demonstrations in several larger cities, a National Day of Action on Immigrant Rights Monday is expected to involve people in some 90 US municipalities, well above organizers' goal of 10. Described as the biggest social movement of Hispanics since the United Farm Workers of Cesar Chavez, the plans for protests, vigils, and marches include a less-visible tier of people stirred to action over American immigration policy: non-Latinos.
"If you watch TV and read the papers, you would think this [immigration reform] is primarily an issue only for Latinos or only illegals or only poor immigrants. [Monday] will show differently," predicts Abdul Malik Mujahid, a Chicago-based Islamic cleric who says 7,000 Muslims will march there Monday to protest the "climate of fear" since 9/11. "Latino organizers have done a big favor not just to themselves but to all other immigrants, as well as America itself, by standing up and saying this country's immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. Now the rest of us must join in."
The national day of action seems to have expanded exponentially with the organizing power of the Internet. Besides demonstrations, speeches, processions, and assorted performances (from drumming to skits), groups are planning work-walkouts, product boycotts, fasting, and other measures. snip----
"No one could have anticipated this kind of involvement even as little as six months ago," says organizer Rich Stolz of Fair Immigration Reform Movement, one of the organizing coalitions for National Action Day. "Once it got announced, it spread nationally, regionally, locally through groups which have been building relationships for years. They know this is the moment to do something unprecedented."
Organizers originally designed a broad platform they hoped would attract a wide array of immigrants - Pacific Islanders, Southeast Asians, Europeans, Africans, and Pakistanis. The specific objection is legislation, approved by the US House in December, that makes it a felony (rather than a civil offense) to be in the US illegally. But organizers are also asking for something: worker protections, civil rights measures, family reunification, and immigration reform that defines "a path to citizenship for current undocumented and future immigrants to the US."
"This is America's civil rights battle for the 21st century," says Chung-Wha Hong of the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella organization for about 150 groups in New York State that work with immigrants and refugees. Immigrants are anticipating a duel between the House and the Senate over immigration-reform language, she says, but Monday's actions are really about "whether or not America will continue to be what it has always been - a nation of immigrants.
Anger has been building among immigrants for decades, Ms. Hong says, but it has intensified over the past decade, as immigrants felt targeted by welfare reform, what they see as a civil-rights rollback, and, most recently, anti- terror laws. Post-9/11 crackdowns, legislation denying social services to illegals in California, and Minutemen border operations have roused immigrants, legal and not. "Immigrants have been feeling like targets for all that is wrong and want to stand up and show how they contribute to the diversity and richness of America," she says.
L.A.'s Ms. Lee says her major concern is law-enforcement sweeps through Korea-town, which have created a climate of fear in the immigrant community. Boston's Ms. Rogers says her priority is visa procedures for foreigners who come to America to study, which she says need to encourage the world's best and brightest to stay in America. Mr. Duvra says US refugee policy needs an overhaul.
snip---
"Each time immigrants have these giant rallies, the more they infuriate the rest of the American population with the idea that those who break the law get to march and somehow be rewarded," says Ira Mehlman, L.A. spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform. "We have seen in France what happens when you try to bring in millions of people ... in many cases who are hostile. We saw there that it didn't work, and it won't work here."
Others note that it is not likely so many participating groups will be able to agree later, when it's time to iron out the details in whatever legislation emerges. The Iraq antiwar movement and the antiglobalization movement are cases in point, they say.
"There are a lot of fringe groups tagging along on this to get exposure and legitimacy and to network," says Britt Minshall, a 16-year career law enforcer and now a pastor at United Church of Christ. "Once the main goal is accomplished, they begin to fight and hurt the cause they apparently came together for."
Activists themselves have some concerns. "I worry a bit over whether these events will be able to remain be peaceful," says Rogers. And demonstrators who carry the flags of their home countries may leave a bad taste in the mouths of Americans, she says. Such was the case in recent demonstrations in Washington.
Thanks for the links. My state is listed on the first link and I'm firing off an email to find out where they are meeting!
When the ballot box is undermined, all too often, the next step is the cartridge box.
Chung-Wha Hong, Advocacy Director of the NYIC
and former staff at the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium
McCain Plans a Visit To Rally For Immigration Reform Plan
By DANIELA GERSON - Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 17, 2006
snip
"We will know what Senator McCain thinks about this issue, but we continue to be in the dark about what our own two senators think should be done," said Chung-Wha Hong, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, one of the groups sponsoring the event. "More and more immigrants are asking why they aren't taking a stance on this issue and fighting for reform."
http://www.nysun.com/article/27801
Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an alliance of 150 immigration groups.
http://www.thenyic.org/images/uploads/NYIC.JPG
Chung-Wha Hong
http://gvny.com/columns/lamb/img/lamb02-07-05Immigrants_ChungWhaHong&AnthonyNg3600Web.jpg
Much of their testimony focused on the necessity of more English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training. Everyone who spoke, including Chung Wha Hong, Deputy Director of the New York Immigration Coalition
about how pivotal these classes are when it comes to immigrants improving their lives by getting better jobs, becoming citizens, being active in their children's education, navigating the health system - in general building the lives they dreamt of when they came to this country.
spoke up for the intense need to maintain and increase funding for the Immigrant Workers Legal Services Initiative. This would expand the availability of free legal representation for low-income immigrant workers, providing assistance to workers in cases of unpaid wages, occupational health, and other employment related services.
The only negative about your post is it is American CITIZENS who are being sold down the drain. I cannot believe what is happening to my precious country.
Make sure you let the media know, and everyone else you convince does the same. We must get the word out.
"We believe that immigrants, like women and like African-Americans before them, have rights in this country, and the time is ripe for a new civil rights moment."
‹ U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy
"A new civil rights movement?"
If I understand Sen. Kennedy correctly, he says that not letting Manuel from Mexico enjoy the rights of American citizenship is the same as preventing actual Americans who happened to be black from having those rights. Which means either black Americans were never really entitled to the rights denied them; or that everyone on the planet has the right to be an American, and we citizens are not allowed to control our own borders.
Both ideas are idiotic; I'm just trying to figure out which one is the most offensive.
[snip]
The protesters are already demonstrating for "equal rights" and that means WAGES!! Once they become "citizens" they will be entitled to them. THAT is NOT going to make these big corporations happy. Their "cheap" labor will be a thing of the past.
These people are ILLEGAL INVADERS, and should ALL be deported, jailed, shot, whatever. Let's just hope they fly the Mexican flag again. THAT really made Americans mad.
Pandora's box, indeed. Thanks Congress.
"Who/what is "Chavex"
Pat Robertson springs to mind. Sort of like "Terminex."
There are about 298 million people in the U.S. Maybe it's time for 288 million legal Americans to march on Washington, DC to let Congress know it has failed us.
Abandoned by ones own government. Well at least people may learn why venal governers are a 'Bad Thing!' Keep Your Powder Dry!
So now the question arises, are we willing to fight for America the way we have been fighting for Iraq? America has been invaded by Vicente's boys and they have every intention of taking over America and turning it into another one of their Socialist third world banana republics.
They're not asking for citizenship, and I don't want to grant them citizenship. I don't want to saddle my descendents with paying these leeches Social Security. Also if they're citizens, then we're legally obligated to give them welfare, food stamps, medical care, education, etc.... all the things they're stealing now.
Of course as citizens, they'd have to pay income tax and obey laws like having to get auto insurance, pay their bills, pay property taxes, etc., and that would cost them money and make them pay for stuff they get for free now. I don't think they want that. Besides, they don't think of themselves as Americans. Look at the flags they're flying. They look like Mexican flags to me.
Agreed. They are traitors. If Americans refuse to stand up to defend our national sovereingty then we don't have a country anymore, and I may just move to Costa Rica. I figure if I'm going to live in a spanish-speaking country I could at least do it in one where I don't have to pay an obscene amount of taxes to support people who get paid under the table and pay no taxes.
The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) is an umbrella policy and advocacy organization for approximately 150 groups in New York State that work with immigrants and refugees.
http://www.thenyic.org/content.asp?cid=20
2005 - 2006 NYIC Board of Directors
Elsie St.-Louis Accilien, Executive Director
Haitian-Americans United for Progress (HAUP)
Ana Maria Archila, Executive Director
Latin American Integration Center (LAIC)
Inna Arolovich, Chairperson
American Association of Jews from the Former USSR
José Calderón, Vice President
Hispanic Federation
Guillermo Chacón, National Senior Organizer
Salvadoran American National Network
May Y. Chen, International Vice President, UNITE!
Vice President , UNITE HERE
Margaret Chin, Deputy Executive Director
Asian Americans for Equality
Vladimir Epshtyen, President
Russian-American Voters Educational League (RAVEL)
Director, Metropolitan Russian American Parents Association
Hector Figueroa, Secretary-Treasurer
SEIU Local 32BJ, AFL-CIO
Andrew Friedman, Co-Director
Make the Road by Walking
Graciela Heymann, Executive Director
Westchester Hispanic Coalition
Caroline Katz, Director of External Relations
United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies
Mae Lee, Director
Chinese Progressive Association
Carmen Maquilon, Director of Immigrant Service
Catholic Charities Diocese of Rockville Center (CCRC)
Carlton Mitchell, Executive Director
International Center
Yu Soung Mun, Executive Director
Young Korean American Service & Education Center, Inc. (YKASEC)
Moises Perez, Executive Director
Alianza Dominicana
Mohammed Razvi, Executive Director
Council of Peoples Organization (COPO)
Mario Russell, Director of Migration Services
Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of New York
Annetta Seecharran, Executive Director
South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!)
Susan Stamler, Director-Policy & Advocacy
United Neighborhood Houses
Arif Ullah, Coordinator
Immigration Resource Center & Long Island Immigrant Alliance
Jose F. Valencia, President & CEO
New York Association for New Americans
Barbara Weiner, Staff Attorney
Empire Justice Center
Patrick Young, Director of Legal Services
Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN)
Action Alerts
Senate Debating Immigration Now! Urge Senators to Protect Immigrant Rights!
Immigration Law Federal 3/13/2006
NYIC’s Annual Immigrant Constituents’ Action Day
General City 1/9/2006
New Yorkers to Protest Worst Immigration Bill in a Century
Immigration Law City 12/20/2005
DREAM Act Rally at Thomas Paine Park
Immigration Law Federal 6/16/2005
Tell Mayor Bloomberg to Fund Immigrant Services!
English Language Literacy City 5/25/2005
Tell Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Miller to Fund Immigrant Services!
English Language Literacy City 5/24/2005
Stop Representative Sensenbrenner's Anti-Immigrant Bill
Driver's Licenses Federal 1/19/2005
Funding for Section 8 Vouchers Under Attack
Housing Federal 6/3/2004
Sign-On in Support of the Healthy Homes Act
Housing City 2/7/2004
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