by Shayla Selva
A sea of people, mostly dressed in white, paraded March 27 through the streets of Los Angeles in the lucha, or struggle, for justice and immigration reform. U.S. flags were raised high while participants in cars between the closed-off streets honked. Hands stretched out from windows in abandoned high buildings to let the marchers know they were not alone.
The movement to declare justice and rights for immigrants began with a chant that roared, “A unified community will never be defeated.”
Organizations including the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) and the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) came to support more than 10,000 participants, declaring their support of the message: “No More Separation of Families.”
Many had stories and causes to share, from better treatment of immigrants to improved working conditions and access to driver’s licenses.
“We ask President Barack Obama to stop the human raids,” said Mexican American Feliciano Gómez. “We can no longer see whether or not they are truly voting in their best interest of their families and constituents.”
Additionally, the NLC evaluated members of Congress in terms of their positions with respect to immigration law. The outcome of these evaluations may be important to the electorate during the November elections, it noted. An American Community Survey showed that 225 House districts had more than 50,000 immigrant-profile constituents during 2007-2009, but only 120 House members received pro-immigrant scores.
Within the House, 68.4 percent of representatives in districts with more than 50,000 Asian-American residents favored reform. This contrasts to 51.9 percent of representatives in districts with 50,000 or more Latino members and to 58.2 percent of representatives of districts with more than 50,000 foreign-born members.
These data should invite inquiries into the factors that create the differences between the relative strengths of non-white voices.
The NLC also recorded significant pro-immigrant legislation support variation between regions; 28 percent of senators from the South received pro-immigrant scores greater than 70 percent compared to 77 percent from the Northeast, 56 percent from the North-west, and 50 percent from the Midwest. However, the South itself is far from homogenous in terms of proimmigrant support among representatives.
The South Atlantic region shows the highest levels of support with more than 50 percent of representatives achieving scores of 70 percent or better compared to 13 percent of the West South Central region and 0 percent of the East South Central region.
The statistical representation of these southern areas, which contain large numbers of Latinos, heavily contribute to the overall disconnect between the general population and members of congress. Hispanic Link.
