Posted on 04/09/2006 5:51:02 PM PDT by MammalModerate
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.
Smaller cities where events are planned include Bakersfield, Calif.; Fort Myers, Fla.; Hays, Kan.; and Oxford, Ohio, and include groups as diverse as Ukrainians, Palestinians, Irish, labor, and antiwar coalitions.
"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.
While organizers say a big turnout and a broad diversity at Monday's events will send a signal to politicians in Washington wrangling over immigration reform, others see possible down sides.
"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.
Don't blame me. I'm not one of those moronic, buck-toothed, PC pinheads who walks around mumbling "We're a nation of immigrants" all the time. I was born here. My father was born here also as was my grandfather and my grandfather's father...
You have got to be crapping me! Oh Man!
I'm beginning to wonder whether the illegal immigration issue and the terror threat issue aren't about to merge...
RE: "This sh*t isn't looking real good for us at this time."
If that's true, at least we've got lots of company.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612226/posts
Reprinted from NewsMax.com http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/9/224821.shtml?s=icp
Sunday, April 9, 2006 10:46 p.m. EDT
Time Poll: Americans Back Border Fence, Deportations and Denying Benefits
Americans support building a security fence along the entire 2,000 mile U.S.- Mexican border by a landslide, a new Time magazine poll has found.
By a margin of 56 to 40 percent, respondents said they want the wall built from sea to shining sea - not just the 700 miles stipulated in the House plan, a proposal the press calls "draconian."
In more evidence that the American people want a tougher crackdown on illegal immigration than anything favored by Congress or the media, 62 percent told Time that they favored using the military to guard the border. Just 35 percent opposed.
But the poll's biggest shocker may be on the question of deporting illegals back to their native country, an option that politicians and the press say is out of the question.
Time found, however, that 47 percent of those surveyed actually favor deporting "all illegal immigrants." 49 percent were opposed.
And 51 percent said the U.S. would be "better of" if all illegals were deported and the border sealed to prevent any more from coming in. Just 38 percent disagreed.
A full 75 percent say illegals should be denied government supplied healthcare and food stamps, with 21 percent saying they should get those benefits. 69 percent say illegals shouldn't be allowed to get U.S. drivers licenses.
Time surveyed 1004 adult Americans on March 29 and 30. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Homeland/Civil Defense
Immigration/Borders
108-108-108-108
I agree. I'm tired of aliens coming here, and telling us we aren't giving them enough. Time for them to leave.
The Latin American Communists, Russians, and Chinese support Azatlan.
Hatred of America is the common bond that brings these protesters together. Something has to give. This is getting insane.
I would think that the idiots in Congress would see what they have done......
We're turning into France!!
Let's all protest!!!!
Agreed. Especially when most conservatives will be at their *JOB* during most of this.
Probably overstayed visas....there are millions of them and it is the overlooked equation in the illegals thing.
Time for the DoJ to use R.I.C.O. statutes to shut down and arrest these organized criminal conspiracies to incite riots.
The FCC needs to immediately yank the licenses for any radio or TV station that they can show that used public air waves to incite riots or other illegal actions. Suspected stations should have their recent broadcast archive tapes impounded and reviewed by FCC auditors to determine if they violated FCC policy and/or Federal/State/Local laws.
Media coverage and security camera tapes should also be impounded to be used to identify individuals committing illegal acts, with a priority on those leading the illegal activities (especially known criminals.)
If any ambulances arrived to any hospital in a 5 mile radius of these illegal assemblies with a patient that died in route to the hospital, then those who lead and/or organized these illegal assemblies should be prosecuted for murder.
Come down hard on these people now or we will end up like France writ large.
I think that Americans need to take back their country.
The sooner the better.
Great post. Our elected officials are now letting foreign criminals write our immigration law. CW2 is coming to a neighborhood near you.
Semper Fi'
Jarhead
That's exactly what's happening and I imagine as people around the world hear that their might be amnesty granted to illegals they are making their plans to "vacation" in America right now.
It's really sickening to know that this many people have gone missing after their visas expired. They know that noone is going to come after them and if for some reason they do get identified as an illegal, no one is going to deport them.
This doesn't even begin to be just a Mexican problem. The next wave of terrorists are probably in this country right now after entering on student visas. Our government never even checks to make sure that they are even attending the school that they came into the country to attend.
If they're so miserable here, not getting welfare & other perks, might I suggest they go back to where they came from!!
I don't see anyone holding a gun to their heads and demanding that they stay
That's why the democratic party WANTS as many of them as possible to become citizens. The democratic party is absoluting drooling over the MILLIONS of new democratic voters about to enter their ranks in the near future!!
I have to think the congresscritters don't care as long as they think they will get reelected. We have very few statesmen today, mostly we have pigs feeding at a trough.
I am disgusted with virtually all of them.
susie
The mob, crips, bloods and other organizations will join their fellow criminals to support this countries tradition of crime and march for inclusion. Criminals have been in this country since Columbus and have made significant contribution to the economy and are responsible for a million jobs in law enforcement, medicine and government.
Every photo of these mobs of lawbreakers in our streets should
carry this caption: Your government failed to do its job. Why should you trust it now?
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