Asian groups have become particularly concerned about immigration as the United States steps up its efforts to deport illegal Chinese and Korean immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security recently said that it is close to an agreement with China over the repatriation of about 39,000 Chinese immigrants. Korean activists said families have been torn apart when immigrant parents were deported while their American-born children remained in the United States.
[More info on the planned Chinese internment camps including the contract to a Halliburton subsidiary to build them is here.]
The groups for Monday's rallies are being organized by word of mouth, by radio stations and old-fashioned fliers.
This is their time. Do what you can to support them. We need an easier path to legalization. Let families stay together without fear of jail and deportation. Let the undocumented live and work out in the open. Make employers pay them a fair wage and provide health care and other benefits. All immigrants should have access to all public services and benefits including driver licenses, higher education, and health care.
Here are ten provisions that should be included in a legalization program. Will we get them all? Not this time around. But we need to push for as many as possible.
Your Senators and Congresspersons will be in your home district during the next two weeks. Call their local office or stop by. Tell them to say no to any compromise bill that includes the punitive enforcement provisions in Sensenbrenner's H.R. 4437.
Tell them to reject any deal unless there is a guarantee it will be protected on the Senate floor from damaging Republican amendments and in the later House/Senate conference committee. Tell your Senators the best way to protect a Senate deal in conference is to insist that the entire Senate Judiciary Committee be appointed conferees to any later House/Senate conference.
