'"Today We March,Tomorrow We Vote!"'
From Lincoln, Nebraska and Bloomington, IL, to Jonesboro, TN and Tyler, TX to Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C. and dozens of more cities and towns across America, pro-immigrants rights advocates ruled the day, officially called, A National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice.
The rallies, whose mood was largely festive rather than angry, were the latest in recent weeks in response to a bill passed in the House that would speed up deportations, tighten border security and criminalize illegal immigrants. A proposal that would have granted citizenship to the vast majority of illegal immigrants collapsed in the Senate last week.
...the millions of immigrants who have quietly poured into this country over the past 16 years, most of them Hispanic, may be emerging as a potent political force.
Over and over again, construction workers, cooks, gardeners, sales associates and students who said they had never demonstrated before said they were rallying to send a message to the nation's lawmakers.
The best news is politicians and lawmakers may be willing to listen.
...the scope and size of the marches have astonished politicians on Capitol Hill as well as the churches and immigrant advocacy groups organizing the demonstrations, leading some immigrant advocates to hail what they describe as the beginnings of a new, largely Hispanic civil rights movement.
Some Republicans in Congress say the demonstrations have also recalibrated the debate on immigration legislation, forcing lawmakers to take into account the group's political muscle. ...Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who favors granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, said Monday: "I think everybody sees the immigrant community as an emerging force. I think everybody is quite sensitive that they don't want to be on the wrong side, politically, of this group."
Even conservative Sen. Lindsay Graham is taking note:
"Those who believe that they have no political vulnerability for the moment don't understand the future."
In Madison, WI, there was a mile long of marchers. In New York City, it was a multi-ethnic and cultural affair.
No rally was more diverse than New York's, where the thousands who converged at City Hall Park were greeted in Spanish, Chinese, French and Korean, and heard invocations by a rabbi and the leader of a Buddhist temple.
"We are inseparable, indivisible and impossible to take out of America," Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, told a spirited crowd that included hotel housekeepers from El Salvador, Senegalese street vendors, Chinese restaurant workers and Mexican laborers.
Yes, we need immigration reform. The reforms we need are ones which will:
- Provide the opportunity for undocumented immigrants to legalize their status
- Expand avenues for legal immigration and support family reunification
- Provide access and options for permanent residency and citizenship
- Strengthen labor protections and their enforcement for all workers, both native and foreign born
- End the employer sanctions program
- End border and immigration enforcement abuses
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