by Jackie Guzman
Barack Obama
WASHINGTON, D.C.— As President-elect Barack Obama assesses the nation’s priorities, assembles his Cabinet, and moves his administrative team into the White House Jan. 20, immigration reform leaders plan to be among the first to sign his guest book.
They’ll be assembling at the White House gateson the day following the presidential inauguration parade, they promise.
“We are expecting thousands,’ says Lucero Beebe-Giudice, spokesperson for the D.C.-based grassroots organization Tenants & Workers United, which has joined with 29 other area groups as the National Capital Immigration Coalition to pressure Obama to make good on his campaign pledge to give comprehensive immigration reform “top priority” during his first year in office.
Under the banner, “A New Day for America, A New Hope for Our Communities,” the NCIC and 270 more organizations nationwide, united by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, are staging a mobilization in front of the White House Jan. 21.
They represent immigrants from all of the world’s continents.
During a Nov. 12 news conference at the National Press Club, their leaders pointed to Latino and immigrant voters’ overwhelming support for Obama, expressing optimism that the President-elect would not let their trust go unrewarded. Two-thirds of the estimated 10.5 million Latino voters cast their ballots for the Illinois senator.
Referring to the unprecedented national pro-immigrant demonstrations across the nation in 2006 in response to a draconian immigration bill by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R.-Ind.) that passed in the House of Representatives Dec. 16, 2005, by 239-182, FIRM member Angelica Salas, who is executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, declared, “We marched in the millions, we voted in the millions, and immigrants demand real solutions.”
Among its numerous punitive elements, Sensenbrenner’s bill would have made all undocumented residents guilty of felonies just by virtue of their presence in the United States.
Millions of persons in more than 100 cities and towns participated in the peaceful ‘06 protests. In the largest such national demonstration in U.S. history, Chicago’s crowd was estimated at 750,000 while the one in Los Angeles was variously pegged at between 500,000 and a million.
At this month’s capital news conference, Abdul Kamus, executive director of Washington’s African Resource Center, warned, “There are about 5,500 taxicab drivers in the D.C. area. We are working with Maryland and Virginia drivers as well. We expect tens of thousands of immigrants and supporters.”
NCIC president Jessica Álvarez emphasized the immigrant community has fully embraced the spirit of hope and democracy. “We will remain active long after the election Together NCIC, FIRM and other allies pledge to help the new administration institute immigration reform.”
Some press reports already suggest that immigration reform won’t likely be an Obama first-year priority.
Wrote Tom Barry in the political newsletter Counter Punch, “Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff signals that political pragmatism, not campaign promises to Latinos, may determine immigration policy in the new administration.”
Emanuel, whom Obama plucked from 11linoist congressional delegation to run his White House operations, referred to immigration as a “losing issue” for Democrats earlier this year.
If Obama reneges on his pledge to Hispanics, the groups’ ioaders say they will continue to remind him that immigration reform benefits the entire nation.
To advocate effectively for a path to legalization, said Álvarez, “We are as king for families to come out of the shadows (and tell their stories). We need to fix this broken immigration system.’’
In the next two months, both coalitions will conduct a series of events designed to open dialogue between policymakers and the immigration-reform community. Hispanic Link.
