Aztlan-Network-News Blog: Response to Ron> Re: [NetworkAztlan_News] NYTimes: Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite the Risks

Related Websource:
http://www.nytimes. com/2009/ 04/09/us/ politics/ 09immig.html

4-10-2009 @10:36 PM ~ Gracias Hermano Ron ~ I am glad you are down there to help represent us along with the other companeros and companeras. I regret not being able to make it down there in the flesh but I will be there in spirit. I have my own refugees to help out at the Emergency Shelter I work at up here in Sacramento. I consider all Americans who are homeless in the streets also refugees and we have some from other countries. An elderly feisty Russian who is disabled wandering the streets with a cane, a lost Ukrainian young girl left outside to fend for herself around these predators that haunts the streets around here now. Imagine a hard working brother from Mexico who has been here for years but lost his job, became homeless and now he is at the shelter. Yes, YA BASTA! Enough is enough!

We should demand out loud complete amnesty for those who are in jeopardy of beind labeled an illegal alient and deported. There should be an immediate moratorium on all immigration cases involving Mexicans who are under ICE until this whole issue is settled once and for all. Yes, we are in a unique situation somewhat similiar to the Palestinian people. Our people did not create or cross the border, the border crossed us and the U.S.A. continues to double-cross us.

The truth is that the Obama regime, as much as I support Obama in general and respect him as a humane being, does not have a concrete clue as to what to do about 'the immigration issue' nor are they bold enough to come up and out with a strong solution to the whole dilemna. We should demand a GENERAL AMNESTY!!!!!

At the same time, we should closely observe our non-Latino allies in the progressive movement inside the United States who say they are with us, who say SI SE PUEDE! and keep them in tight solidarity with us on this central core American issue.

This whole 'immigration issue' will make or break families, alliances and coalitions in ways no one can completely foresee!

How can a people whose descendants have been here for many millenniums of thousands of year, for as long as anyone can remember, from before recorded history possibly ever be considered a foreigner!!! It is insane and the government has long been insane on the whole immigration issue and the Mexican people.

<><><><><><><><><><><>
Education for Liberation!
Peter S. Lopez aka: Peta

Sacramento, California, Aztlan
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/THIRD-WORLD-NEWS/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/

From: Ron Gochez <mexicanoatucla@aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2009 10:46:47 AM
Subject: [NetworkAztlan_News] NYTimes: Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite the Risks

This is why we MUST continue the pressure on President Obama to push forward. We know that for political reasons, he will try to pass some weak "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" like the one that Representative Luis V. Gutierrez from Chicago is trying to push. This is when the grassroots coalitions must unite together and send a powerful message to DC; "STOP ALL ICE RAIDS and FULL LEGALIZATION NOW"

This is going to be discussed this weekend at the Southern California Immigration Coalition's Immigration UNITY Conference. Over 50 speakers from across California are already confirmed; including elected officials like Senator Gil Cedillo, Community organizers from organizations like Hermandad Mexicana, Union Del Barrio, authors like David Bacon, university professors like Raul Hinojosa and Gilbert Gonzales, leaders like Angela Sanbrano from NALACC, Christian Ramirez from the American Friends Service Committee and Pablo Alvarado from
NDLON, attorneys like Peter Schey and the list goes on and on...

Together, we can pressure President Obama to do what's right! The Southern CA Immigration Coalition has THREE Central Demands.

1. Stop ALL ICE Raids NOW!
2. FULL LEGALIZATION for ALL!
3. No Bracero/Guest Worker Program!

See you at the conference this Saturday!! www.immigrationcoal ition.org

Ron Gochez
Social Justice Educator/Community Organizer
Union Del Barrio
Southern California Immigration Coalition

-----Original Message-----
From: A B
eltran <a.beltran@ymail. com>
To: isn@lists.riseup. net
Cc: a.beltran@ymail. com
Sent: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 9:48 pm
Subject: [isn] NYTimes..com: Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite the
Risks

----- Forwarded Message ----
Subject: Fw: NYTimes.com: Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite the
Risks

April 9, 2009

Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite the Risks

By JULIA PRESTON

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more
difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country's
immigration
system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants
to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on
all sides of the highly divisive issue — as "policy reform that
controls immigration and makes it an orderly system," said the
official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director
of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May,
administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene
working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of
immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as
early as this fall.

Some White House officials said that immigration would not take
precedence over the health care and energy proposals
that Mr. Obama has
identified as priorities. But the timetable is consistent with pledges
Mr. Obama made to Hispanic groups in last year's campaign.

He said then that comprehensive immigration legislation, including a
plan to make legal status possible for an estimated 12 million illegal
immigrants, would be a priority in his first year in office. Latino
voters turned out strongly for Mr. Obama in the election.

"He intends to start the debate this year," Ms. Muñoz said.

But with the economy seriously ailing, advocates on different sides
of the debate said that immigration could become a polarizing issue for
Mr. Obama in a year when he has many other major battles to fight.

Opponents, mainly Republicans, say they will seek to mobilize
popular outrage against any effort to legalize unauthorized immigrant
workers while so many Americans are out of jobs.

Democratic legislative aides said that opening a full-fledged
debate this year on immigration, particularly with health care as a
looming priority, could weigh down the president's domestic agenda.

Debate is still under way among administration officials about the
precise timing and strategy. For example, it is unclear who will take
up the Obama initiative in Congress.

No serious legislative talks on the issue are expected until after
some of Mr. Obama's other priorities have been de
bated, Congressional
aides said.

Just last month, Mr. Obama openly recognized that immigration is a
potential minefield.

"I know this is an emotional issue; I know it's a controversial
issue," he told an audience at a town meeting on March 18 in Costa
Mesa, Calif. "I know that the people get real riled up politically
about this."

But, he said, immigrants who are long-time residents but lack legal
status "have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the
shadows."

The White House is calculating that public support for fixing the
immigration system, which is widely acknowledged to be broken, will
outweigh opposition from voters who argue that immigrants take jobs
from Americans. A groundswell among voters opposed to legal status for
illegal immigrants led to the defeat in 2007 of a bipartisan
immigration bill that was strongly supported by President George W.
Bush.

Administration officials said that Mr. Obama's plan would not add
new workers to the American work force, but that it would recognize
millions of illegal immigrants who have already been working here.
Despite the deep recession, there is no evidence of any wholesale
exodus of illegal immigrant workers, independent studies of census data
show.

Opponents of legalization legislation were incredulous at the idea
that Mr. Obama would take on immigration when economic pain for

Americans is so widespread.

"It just doesn't seem rational that any political leader would say,
let's give millions of foreign workers permanent access to U.S. jobs
when we have millions of Americans looking for jobs," said Roy Beck,
executive director of NumbersUSA,
a group that favors reduced immigration. Mr. Beck predicted that Mr..
Obama would face "an explosion" if he proceeded this year.

"It's going to be, 'You're letting them keep that job, when I could
have that job,' " he said.

In broad outlines, officials said, the Obama administration favors
legislation that would bring illegal immigrants into the legal system
by recognizing that they violated the law, and imposing fines and other
penalties to fit the offense. The legislation would seek to prevent
future illegal immigration by strengthening border enforcement and
cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, while creating
a national system for verifying the legal immigration status of new
workers.

But administration officials emphasized that many details remained to
be debated..

Opponents of a legalization effort said that if the Obama
administration maintained the enforcement pressure initiated by Mr..
Bush, the recession would force many illegal immigrants to return home.
Dan Stein, the president of the Federation for American Immigration 0D
Reform, said it would be "politically disastrous" for Mr. Obama to
begin an immigration initiative at this time.

Anticipating opposition, Mr. Obama has sought to shift some of the
political burden to advocates for immigrants, by encouraging them to
build support among voters for when his proposal goes to Congress.

That is why Representative Luis V. Gutierrez,
a Democrat from Mr. Obama's hometown, Chicago, has been on the road
most weekends since last December, traveling far outside his district
to meetings in Hispanic churches, hoping to generate something like a
civil rights movement in favor of broad immigration legislation.

Mr. Gutierrez was in Philadelphia on Saturday at the Iglesia
Internacional, a big Hispanic evangelical church in a former warehouse,
the 17th meeting in a tour that has included cities as far flung as
Providence, R.I.; Atlanta; Miami; and San Francisco. Greeted with
cheers and amens by a full house of about 350 people, Mr. Gutierrez,
shifting fluidly between Spanish and English, called for immigration
policies to preserve family unity, the strategic theme of his campaign.

At each meeting, speakers from the community, mainly citizens, tell
stories of loved ones who were deported or of delays and setbacks in
the immigration system.. Illegal immigrants have not been invited to
speak.

Mr. Gutierrez's meetings have all been held in churches, both
evangelical and Roman20Catholic, with clergy members from various
denominations, including in several places Muslim imams. At one meeting
in Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, officiated.

One speaker on Saturday, Jill Flores, said that her husband, Felix,
an immigrant from Mexico who crossed the border illegally, had applied
for legal status five years ago but had not been able to gain it even
though she is an American citizen, as are their two children. Now, Ms.
Flores said, she fears that her husband will have to leave for Mexico
and will not be permitted to return for many years.

In an interview, Mr. Gutierrez rejected the idea that the timing is
bad for an immigration debate. "There is never a wrong time for us," he
said. "Families are being divided and destroyed, and they need help
now."

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

Copyright 2009
The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes. com/2009/ 04/09/us/ politics/ 09immig.html

----- Forwarded Message ----

Subject: NYTimes.com: Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite the Risks

U.S. / POLITICS

| Ap
ril 09, 2009

Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite the Risks

By JULIA PRESTON

The new effort would include looking for a path for illegal immigrants
to become legal, a senior administration official said.

Copyright 2009
 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy

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