Posted on 09/26/2003 3:41:40 PM PDT by CedarDave
Friday, September 26, 2003
Rally Pushes Immigrant Rights
By Debra Dominguez
Journal Staff Writer
Before a sea of picketing immigrants, Gov. Bill Richardson took the stage Thursday at De Vargas Park in Santa Fe. The occasion was an Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Rally, and Richardson wasted no time showing his support for the hundreds of immigrant workers before him.
"Viva la raza! Vivan los inmigrantes! Bienvenidos inmigrantes!" he shouted, acknowledging their quest for equality and human rights for the nation's immigrant work force. "Thank you for coming to Santa Fe. Know that New Mexico is your home. We will protect you. You have rights here."
The rally was part of a national campaign to mobilize support for reform of the country's immigration policies, including legalizing the more than 8 million undocumented immigrant workers in the United States.
The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride stop was one of 70 the nearly 1,000 immigrant workers and their ally organization members are making by bus on their way to New York and, ultimately, Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress. The ride originated in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nev.
In collaboration with more than 30 local community and labor organizations that advocate for immigrant worker rights, the band of immigrants spent the entire day educating New Mexicans and recruiting potential supporters.
The group began its day at sunrise with breakfast, mariachis and Aztec dancers at Albuquerque's St. Frances Xavier Church before heading to Santa Fe.
There, the workers gathered to hear Richardson address their concerns, as well as elaborate on his.
The governor said he supports the use of the Mexican government-issued identification card, the Matricula Consular, by immigrants in the United States.
He said he thinks the federal government should not question the validity of the card. Richardson also said he would be chairing a commission of Western governors to find a way for immigrant workers to obtain in-state tuition.
"America needs to open its arms to immigrants as we did in the early years of our history," he said.
"We also need to stop the exploitation of immigrant workers in this country."
Rally organizer Marcela Diaz, executive director of the Santa Fe-based Somos Un Pueblo Unidos, said the rally's purpose was to send a message to elected officials and policymakers it's time for change.
"We want immigrant workers to be able to bring their families to the United States and to be able to organize for better workplace conditions and the protection of civil rights and liberties for everyone, regardless of national origin," she said.
Asela Martinez of Las Vegas, Nev., was one of the many immigrant workers asking for reform.
"Immigrant workers aren't being treated fairly," said Martinez, who works in housekeeping at a Las Vegas hotel. "Legal or not, many of us work hard, pay taxes, earn no Social Security and reap no medical benefits. That's just wrong."
Copyright 2003 Albuquerque Journal
Raza? Race? Hooray for the Race? Surely this immigrant thing isn't about race. Isn't it about illegal immigrants who just can't find the documents they had on the kitchen table this morning?.......[ Carumba! Your cousin Pepe accidentally took them? All you've got is this 'matricular' card and a new California driver's license. What do you mean you didn't know you were a registerd democrat? Well it sez so right here next your X on the LEGAL NAME line.].....Ok, I understand. "Race" doesn't actually mean "race" but it means peoples of all brown color from Mexico who want their constitutional rights to free schooling, health care, and get out of jail free card. Kind of like 'jihad' doesn't realy mean 'holy war'. Ok, I get it(faint sounds of winchester being loaded)
Hey, A$$hole, immigrant workers have done us wrong by violating our laws.
As for "earn no Social Security", that's because they are ILLEGAL. They pay no Social Security taxes. Why should they get benefits?
It's not just the Democrats. The people of the US (and not just the SW) are fed up with the assault on our jobs, culture, laws, environment, and government services. Whether it's the invaders who undermine those citizens who hold basic jobs or totally unneccessary visa holders who just aren't needed and have jobs being taken from unemployed and underemployed US citizens, we all suffer.
It's a nice scam for profit-hungry employers. They give lower wages, and the government picks up the tab for supplemntal medical, educational, housing, etc. Even in this article the horrid Governor of NM talks about it being "just like in the past". Well, that's not true. In the past, there were huge sectors of jobs to be done and areas of the country to grow and there really weren't enough US citizens to do that. Those who came here came mostly for both the jobs and to become like us.
So, with unbelievable percentages of voters appalled by the lack of respect for US citizens and their well-being by almost all of our elected politicians, both parties, how do we effect change? Elect someone who is out of step with the Uniparty and its fake elections which are kind of like asking a kid to choose between broccolli or spinach.
So, check the resumees of those running. Tancredo isn't...he's our best hope in four years if there's anything left to save. The HOR is getting pretty feisty about NAFTA, WTO, the Patriot Act, questioning war spending. My choice to institute change would come from there. Someone who's not a member of the clubs...Yale, Harvard, the Senate, Governors, WallStreet...they've been together too long and respect each other a little too much.
So CD, spread your anger, it would be a movement by now if the press weren't on the side of the OneWorlders.
Stay Safe !
This caught my eye, too. Hooray for the race?? Sounds like Richardson is a racist to me.
I don't think George Wallace ever said anything like this.
If the ATF was run like the INS, you could shoot machine guns off your back porch day or night, no problem.
(I just want a list of the laws that "really count," and a list of the laws that I can ignore, because the feds won't enforce them.
A radical faction of Democrats called the Partido del Ejercito de los Pobres ("Los Pepes") takes over the state government in wildly rigged elections. (Ya gotta love those touch screen voting machines!)
After "Solo Espanol" their first new laws are for "land reform," confiscatory taxes on any properties over 1,000 acres. The wildly popular and controversial Gobenador Camacho is assassinated by a displaced 5th generation Anglo rancher, and the state erupts in Kosovo-style ethnic civil war.
The federal government is too busy fighting the wars in the middle east and keeping the peace in riot-torn L.A. and Chicago to do much about a low level civil war in Nuevo Mexico.
Anyway, that's the background of "Domestic Enemies."
Some might say that revenge is sweet. The Americans used the same tactics in the late 1800's following acquistion of the NM territory from Mexico. Quite a few Hispanic landowners lost their homes to confiscatory taxes levied by the Americans. Some ended up in private hands, some in federal government hands, I believe (forest service, etc.). It was wrong then and would be wrong now, but that wouldn't stop radical Hispanic politicos from trying it in the 21st century.
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