A project of the Center for Community Change

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Rally for Immigrant Justice on April 10th!

Posted by Sarah English on April 3, 2013

Tens of thousands of immigrants, supporters and faith and community leaders will gather on the U.S. Capitol’s West Lawn on Wednesday, April 10th to demand comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship.

As the citizenship-now.org website states, the purpose of the event is to “educate, march, rally, pray and knock on the doors of Congress until President Obama signs common sense immigration reform that includes a realistic path to citizenship.”

According to a recent poll, 80% of Americans today support immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship.  They understand that our current immigration laws are no longer working, and tearing apart families through deportation is not the way to deal with the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country.

Join us in telling Congress that the time is now to fix our broken immigration system!  Click here to register for the April 10th rally!

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Immigrant Families Demand Immigration Reform, Reiterate March 21st Deadline for Senate to Introduce Legislation With Path To Citizenship

Posted by Alesia on March 13, 2013

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, March 13, 2013

 

Contact:

For English language Media:

Donna De La Cruz, ddelacruz@communitychange.org, 202-339-9331, 202-441-3798 (cell)

For Spanish language Media:

Ricardo Ramírez, rramirez@communitychange.org 202-339-9371, (202) 905-1738 (cell) 

Immigrant Families Demand Immigration Reform, Reiterate March 21st Deadline for Senate to Introduce Legislation With Path To Citizenship

National storytelling bus tour culminates on Capitol Hill With Visits, Actions  

(WASHINGTON)—Immigrant families who took part in the nearly 3-week, 19-state, 90-city national Keeping Families Together bus tour came to Capitol Hill today demanding legislation with a path to citizenship.

DSC_3792 actThe more than 100 families from all areas of the country told their stories of dealing with the broken immigration system at a people’s hearing attended by these members of Congress: Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois; Mike Honda, D-California; Judy Chu, D-California; Juan Vargas, D-California; Steven Horsford, D-Nevada, and;  Bill Foster, D-Illinois.

After the hearing the families visited the offices of several members of the Senate’s Gang of 8 to tell their stories. They also held actions at Sen. Marco Rubio’s office and another at the Republican National Committee demanding that GOP members introduce a bill with a path to citizenship.

“The stories these families have been telling are all heartbreaking and it is crucial that Congress listen to them to see the human element as they craft a comprehensive immigration bill,” said Kica Matos, spokesperson for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), which sponsored the bus tour. FIRM is a coalition of leading immigrant rights organizations in 30 states. During the tour, more than 400 stories were collected.

Max Mehdi of New York told the story of how his family came to the U.S. from Pakistan because his sister desperately needed post-brain surgery treatment she could only get here.

“My sister got great care but the doctors told us we would have to stay her long term for the treatments so my family applied for visas but they were denied,” Mehdi said. “Our family now faces choices that involve separation. We want to live here in the country where we have made our home for the last 13 years, and stay together.”

Stories like Max’s are why FIRM reiterated a deadline of March 21 for the Senate to introduce a bill that includes a path to citizenship.

“We will support only legislation that includes a path to citizenship, nothing less,” Matos said. “Families should be allowed to stay together to work toward becoming full-fledged Americans.”

The Keeping Families Together stories are highlighted daily on the Keeping Families Together storytelling website and the FIRM Facebook page.

The tour traveled through seven regions: Southwest (California, Arizona, Nevada), Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana), Mountain West (Colorado), Great Lakes (Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio), New England (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island), Mid Atlantic (New York) and the Southeast (Florida, North Carolina).

Families who could not travel with the bus were able to participate in a virtual bus tour by sharing their stories at www.keepingfamiliestogether.net or www.familiasunidasahora.net.

 

Some bus tour highlights:

**Great Lakes tour: The tour kicked off in Chicago on Feb. 25th. Participants marched through a snowstorm in Cincinnati.
**New England tour: Participants stormed through New England visiting Boston, Providence, New Haven doing citizenship workshops at every stop.
**New York tour: The melting pot of America brought forth many unique immigrant stories, including families dealing with immigration and LGBT issues.
**Southeast tour: In Florida, participants delivered petitions to Sen. Marco Rubio’s offices in Tampa and Orlando. In North Carolina, farmworkers joined the tour.
**Arizona tour: Grammy-winning artist Ricardo Arjona kicked off the Arizona tour at his concert in Phoenix.
**California tour: Civil rights leader Delores Huerta and astronaut Jose Hernandez participated in the tour.
**Northwest tour: Participants were greeted in small towns in Oregon, Idaho and Washington state by huge crowds.

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Immigrant Families Rebuke Jeb Bush: Call for Path to Citizenship

Posted by Alesia on March 5, 2013

Contact:

For English language Media: Donna De La Cruz, ddelacruz@communitychange.org, 202-339-9331, 202-441-3798 (cell)

For Spanish language Media: Ricardo Ramirez, rramirez@communitychange.org (202) 905-1738

Immigrant Families Rebuke Jeb Bush: Call for Path to Citizenship

Bush’s Flip-flop on Citizenship Puts Politics Before People

(WASHINGTON)—Immigrant families fueling a national bus tour with their stories of hardship dealing with the current broken immigration system rebuked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for flip-flopping on his support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as he looks down the road to the 2016 election.

“He’s putting politics over people, the same people he has supported for all these years,” said Janet Alvarez Magallanes, who was part of the California leg of the bus tour. “I am American, my children were born here but my husband could be deported any day. For me and for my kids, we’ll be very devastated if he gets taken away.”

In an interview Monday on the “Today” show, Bush said that he does not think that most Latinos wanted to become citizens. But public opinion surveys indicate that Latino immigrants do want to naturalize. The Pew Hispanic Center recently released a study that shows that “more than nine-in-ten (93 percent) who have not yet naturalized say they would if they could.”

“Jeb Bush has decided that rather than forge a new path for the Republican Party and be a leader on immigration reform, he will kowtow to conservatives and embrace their brand of exclusionary politics,” said Kica Matos, spokesperson for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), a coalition of immigrant rights organizations putting on the bus tour. “If he thinks taking this severe right turn in his thinking on immigration reform will win him the Latino vote, he is sorely, sorely mistaken.”

“We renew our call for the Senate to meet the March 21 deadline to introduce a bill. The voices of families on this national tour will be heard by all lawmakers and we will not accept a system which creates a permanent underclass of people who have no pathway to citizenship and full equality.  The very notion is un-American,” Matos added.

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