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Immigrants Rally in City, Seeking Rights
The New York Times ^ | October 5, 2003 | STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Posted on 10/04/2003 6:26:15 PM PDT by sarcasm

Tens of thousands of immigrants rallied in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens yesterday with the hope of promoting an immigrants' rights movement that will capture the nation's conscience the way the 1960's civil rights movement did.

Coming from Mexico, China, Haiti and many other countries, the immigrants are seeking to persuade lawmakers in Washington to, among other things, grant legal status to more than 8 million immigrants.

"America is a land of immigrants; it was built by immigrants," said Roger Toussaint, an immigrant from Trinidad who is president of New York City's Transport Workers Union. "The justice that was extended to the immigrants of the past should be extended to the immigrants of today."

Organizers estimated that about 100,000 immigrants and their supporters crowded into the park, where they rallied alongside the giant steel globe, known as the Unisphere, that was the symbol of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair.

Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, was welcomed with heavy applause and spoke for 10 minutes in Spanish before turning to English.

"We cannot go on simply ignoring and tolerating the plight of our brothers and sisters," Cardinal Egan said. "Families are being damaged by cruel separation and in all too many instances shameful advantage is being taken of men and women in the work force who do not have proper papers."

The rally was the final effort in a two-week campaign known as the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, in which 18 buses carrying 900 immigrants and their supporters traveled from Los Angeles, Seattle and eight other cities to Washington and New York to press their case for immigrants' rights. The effort was inspired by the 1961 Freedom Rides, in which blacks and their allies boarded buses to help end segregation in bus terminals in the South. White vigilantes severely beat some of those freedom riders and firebombed one of their buses.

"Forty-two years later, the freedom riders of 2003, you, are going to win," Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and an organizer of the 1961 freedom rides, told the crowd. "We are one people, we are one family, we are one house, and we are not going to let anybody turn us around. We've come too far."

The rally was in many ways a multicultural festival, with salsa and reggae music, signs in Creole and Spanish, and wafting smells of tortillas and jerk chicken.

The demonstrators called for granting legal status to illegal immigrants, for creating more family reunification visas and for increased workplace protections for immigrants because they are often exploited on the job. In addition, the demonstrators called for an end to civil liberty violations against immigrants, complaining that many law-abiding immigrants have faced harassment and detentions since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In 2001, the immigrants' rights movement was gathering steam as the Mexican government worked with immigrants' groups and labor unions to persuade Congress and President Bush to grant legal status to many illegal immigrants. But the Sept. 11 attacks derailed that push because the government's focus turned to border security.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn said that the way immigrants have been treated was a blot on the nation's conscience. "They are often ridiculed, exploited and abused," he said to loud cheers. "This must stop, and this immoral system must be changed."

Church groups, labor unions and immigrants groups sent hundreds of buses to the rally, while many demonstrators arrived by subway and car. Chartered buses brought students from Brown, Columbia, Wesleyan, Yale and other universities and colleges.

Organizers chose Queens for the rally largely because it has so many immigrants from so many different countries and is widely seen as one of the nation's most diverse counties. At the rally, flags from Colombia, Haiti, El Salvador and other countries waved in the light drizzle.

Marian Thom, who works as a paraprofessional at a middle school in Chinatown, said she came to the rally because, "We need to do more to reunify families. And we need better jobs because immigrants have the lowest-paying jobs."

Organized labor was the rally's chief financial sponsor because unions are hoping to improve relations with immigrants, secure better working conditions and persuade many to join unions.

"The struggle of immigrant workers is our struggle," said the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney, whose father was an Irish immigrant. "We believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed, that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Critics questioned the effectiveness of the freedom ride and Flushing Meadows rally. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that favors stronger restrictions on immigration, said, "The people who would need to be persuaded to support an amnesty for illegal immigrants are Republicans, and busloads of illegal immigrants hijacking the vocabulary of the civil rights movement is not a recipe for currying favor with Republican congressmen."

Many employers, including hotels, restaurants and agricultural growers, support the immigrant rights movements, believing that granting legal status to illegal immigrants would spare employers the risk of illegally employing illegal workers. But critics of eased immigration rules warn that granting legal status to illegal immigrants will merely spur new waves of illegal immigration.

The rally's sponsors have not detailed what legislation they would like to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. But in a rally in Washington on Thursday, the sponsors voiced support for a bill that would grant legal status to more than 500,000 illegal farm workers and to illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for five years and have graduated from American high schools.

The crowd appeared as a sea of colorful signs and shirts, that said, "No Human is Illegal," "Justicia, Amnestia, Libertad," and "Building Immigrants' Voices and Votes,"

Representative Charles Rangel, a Manhattan Democrat and head of the city's Congressional delegation, said yesterday's rally would move the nation the way the 1960's civil rights marches did. "Forty years ago we marched, we prayed, we asked for a more just America," he said. "Today you are making history. You are waking our country together."

Speaker after speaker said the rally should be the beginning and not the end of an effort, with immigrants stepping up their campaign for expanded rights and protections.

As the bus riders crossed the country, they held rallies in Tucson; Memphis; Birmingham, Ala.; Boise, Idaho; New Haven and 100 other cities.

Outside El Paso, Tex., immigration officials stopped two buses traveling from Los Angeles and threatened riders with arrest and deportation. The riders refused to show their documents, and after a three-hour stalemate, they were released, but only after union presidents, members of Congress and bishops called the Bush administration to ask that the buses be let go.

"People do want to see change in this country that gives everyone a fair break," said Maria Elena Durazo, the chairwoman of the rally. "I think it's a new day for the immigrant community."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: illegalimmigration; illegals; immigrantlist; invasion; lawbreakers
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To: Noachian
What was that lesson of 09/11 again? The lesson was that it indeed takes an act of terrorism to get laws to change. Okay so far. Unfortunately those laws are always directed at Mr. and Mrs. law abiding citizen.

Oh sure they make great speaches about stopping terrorism, then write laws that get my wife strip searched at airports and terrorists allowed to enter the nation at will.

Who gets photographed in public places? 99.999% of these images are of citizens.

Who has a file on them inches thick at our national security agencies? Mr. and Mrs. Citizen are the ones. Terrorists still enter the nation with our national security agencies taking months before they say, "Whoops!"

Fourteen states allow illegals to get driver's licences. Whoops! Fourteen states allow those drivers licenses to anchor illegals to all sort of in-state and federal aid programs. Fourteen states provide a document which allows illegals to obtain a number of driver's licenses under different names each of which will allow them to board an aircraft.

Gotta love those lessons of 09/11, OKC, TWA-800, The 1993 WTC bombing. We take it in the shorts every time.
61 posted on 10/04/2003 8:08:52 PM PDT by DoughtyOne
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To: Consort
If Eisonhower could do it, why can't Bush do the same thing?
62 posted on 10/04/2003 8:12:23 PM PDT by texastoo
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To: Age of Reason
"The fact that these illegals were not arrest demonstrates the end of America's greatness."

Exactly!!! That's what I've been saying since way before this travesty of a so-called "Freedom Ride" began. This has been the most extreme slap in the face and insult to all Amercan citizens. The fact that this was even allowed to happen let alone no one being arrested tells me that the rule of law in America is dead and soon our nation will be dead and we can blame it all on the traitors who are supposed to be our leaders. Traitorous, treacherous, lying scum BASTARDS...each and every one of them...except for Tom Tancredo.
63 posted on 10/04/2003 8:16:14 PM PDT by vikingcelt
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To: texastoo
...what you just described is happening today in our American towns and cities. This is not a matter of if it will happen, this is happening.

You are right and you validated what I said, but many are not aware of the scope of the problem and are looking for simplistic solutions. Your description of what is happening amplifies what I said.

64 posted on 10/04/2003 8:16:18 PM PDT by Consort
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To: RockyMtnMan
"I still question the logic that because you were born here, from an illegal, you are a citizen. I don't think the constitution grants that power to illegals since the constitution applies to citizens."

I don't think it grants that power either but if a lie gets told over and over and over again, it becomes the truth...supposedly.
65 posted on 10/04/2003 8:17:53 PM PDT by vikingcelt
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To: virgil
"Why the hell don't they march for their rights in Mexico City?"


We can give then rights right here: "You have the right to remain silent, that is say nothing, you have the right to have counsel present during questioning,.............That's easy to understand, and it's all kinds of rights. Where were the cops during this rally? The illegals were lining up for deportation.

Red
66 posted on 10/04/2003 8:25:33 PM PDT by Redwood71
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To: texastoo
If Eisonhower could do it, why can't Bush do the same thing?

He could do it. We just have to let him know how many casualties are acceptable in the resulting riots, lootings, burnings, killings, etc....the campus riots, civil disobedience, a whole '60s redux, just for starters. We have to let him know that we don't care about the images shown around the world of families being rounded up, loaded on trucks, etc, and hauled to the borders of Mexico and Canada. We just have to tell him that it's all OK. Of course, it may all happen peacefully.

67 posted on 10/04/2003 8:27:26 PM PDT by Consort
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To: Consort
Is this a picture of you?


68 posted on 10/04/2003 8:31:54 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarcasm
The civil rights movement of the 60's touched a cord because of slavery. The black population had been brought here against their will, under the worst circumstances.

A bunch of third world scofflaws sneaking into our country in such great numbers that they can assimilate and drag the general culture down have no claim on our conscience.
69 posted on 10/04/2003 8:33:41 PM PDT by lady lawyer
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To: RockyMtnMan
That's a legal principle called ius soli: If you are born in a certain country, you're a citizen of that country, regardless of your parents' nationality and immigration status.

There's a corresponding principle called ius sanguinis: If you are born from parents of a certain country, you're a citizen of that country, regardless of yor place of birth.

The United States applies ius soli for individuals born within the 50 states and outlying territories, and ius sanguinis for indivuduals born abroad of American parents.

There's some countries where both ius soli and sanguinis have to be met when born within the territory of such country; the only one that comes to the top of my head is the Czech Republic: to be a Czech citizen, the person must've been born within Czech territory of Czech parents.

In my country of birth, Colombia, ius soli applies, but not ius sanguinis: If a Colombian couple has a child in New York, for example, that child won't be a Colombian citizen unless his/her parents move back to Colombia with the child before his/her 18th birthday.

To change the fact that aggravates you, Congress could pass a law stating that ius soli will only apply for American citizens and legal permanent immigrants.

But in doing so, a child could be born of illegal immigrant parents from a country which doesn't recognize ius sanguinis, rendering that child stateless, which could be a bit of a problem.

I could explain this deeper, but this is as far as my knowledge allows me.
70 posted on 10/04/2003 8:35:30 PM PDT by El Conservador ("No blood for oil!"... Then don't drive, you moron!!!)
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To: texastoo
Mass immigration, legal or illegal will eventually make healthcare too expensive for most citizens. If they don't curb immigration it's going to get much worse and no gov't program is going to fix it.
71 posted on 10/04/2003 8:36:48 PM PDT by virgil
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To: sarcasm
No. It's a picture of your mother. See the resemblance?
72 posted on 10/04/2003 8:37:43 PM PDT by Consort
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To: Consort
No? You advocate the same policy - appeasement.
73 posted on 10/04/2003 8:46:13 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarcasm
No I don't. I'm for shutting down the borders. It's not happening. I described the current situation as I see it. What do you disagree with in my scenarios?
74 posted on 10/04/2003 8:49:24 PM PDT by Consort
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To: Consort
Your policy is to legalize the illegal aliens - we tried it once before and got more illegal aliens than we started with. The solution is employer sanctions, including jail sentences for those who employ illegals, and deportation. Anything else is appeasement.
75 posted on 10/04/2003 8:54:32 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: virgil
Too expensive health care is happening real fast.

Maybe, this is the plan for universal health care. I don't know. If it is, we are all the losers as we have the best health care in the world now but not for much longer.

76 posted on 10/04/2003 8:56:01 PM PDT by texastoo
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Comment #77 Removed by Moderator

To: sarcasm
Your policy is to legalize the illegal aliens - we tried it once before and got more illegal aliens than we started with.

Illegals will be legalized and more illegals will come here and the cycle will continue until the borders are controlled. Not my policy but that's the way I see it. Your solutions will not work with open borders.

78 posted on 10/04/2003 9:01:21 PM PDT by Consort
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To: Consort
Where did I say anything about having open borders?
79 posted on 10/04/2003 9:04:14 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarcasm
Where did I say anything about having open borders?

I said open borders and I described the current situation and where it might lead to. And I don't expect any mass deportations.

80 posted on 10/04/2003 9:10:18 PM PDT by Consort
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