Si, Se Puede
Si, Se Puede, Yes, We Can, was the rallying cry from Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan’s Federal Plaza on April 1st 2006. The slogan appropriated from Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers Union,(who was against illegal immigration) calls for compassionate immigration reform. Other signs being held were DEPORT BUSH.
Over 11 million undocumented people have fled political and economic persecution from Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and many other countries, to come to the United States to make a decent wage and not get murdered for their views.
The pro immigration demonstration was protesting recently passed legislation in Congress.
A bill in the House of Representatives was passed in December that would change illegal immigration from a civil offense to a criminal felony. It would also jail anyone who attempts to help illegal undocumented immigrants including priests, soup kitchen workers and food bank staff. The bill also calls for a construction of a 700 mile wall at the U.S. Mexico border.
The demonstrators were also celebrating senators McCain and Kennedy’s proposed bill. This legislation proposed a path towards citizenship for undocumented workers, provided they pay a fine and file back taxes, learn English and pass a criminal background check. This bill has just been defeated in the senate on Friday April 7th 2006, by the combined efforts of Senators Bill Frist and Harry Reid.
Molly Ivins, political commentator, points out that racists seem to think that illegal workers- the hardest working, poorest people in the U.S. are getting away with something.
She accurately sums up the US- Mexico border situation as being porous. "When you want cheap labor you open it up, when you don’t, you shut it down. It works for our benefit it always has."
Marc cooper of The Nation, states "seems to me that when an entire population -- who, after all, cleans our offices, cuts our lawns, serves our food, makes our beds, tends to our children and pays taxes but gets no refunds -- is threatened with criminalization, it has the right and necessity to politically mobilize. It's asking them a lot, don't you think, to remain silent and impassive as their arrest and deportation are actively being debated."
Earl Ofari Hutchchinson sees the movement as similar to the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's. Poor Peoples March meshed the Civil Rights movement for Black rights with a broader movement for Civil Rights of Other Minorities.
The Immigrants Rights Movement needs to build coalitions with women’s groups, the Left, African Americans and Asian American struggles for justice, to truly transform into a new Civil Rights Movement. Once we understand that Immigrant rights, even if they are illegal and undocumented are Civil rights can we begin to debate immigration reform.
This country has been built by immigrants from around the world. No one except the Native Americans can claim this land as being theirs. We left our lands to get away from categorizations, of binary oppositions of us versus them, native vs foreign. We came to New York to live with the world in harmony, not in fear of deportation or injustice.
Over 11 million undocumented people have fled political and economic persecution from Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and many other countries, to come to the United States to make a decent wage and not get murdered for their views.
The pro immigration demonstration was protesting recently passed legislation in Congress.
A bill in the House of Representatives was passed in December that would change illegal immigration from a civil offense to a criminal felony. It would also jail anyone who attempts to help illegal undocumented immigrants including priests, soup kitchen workers and food bank staff. The bill also calls for a construction of a 700 mile wall at the U.S. Mexico border.
The demonstrators were also celebrating senators McCain and Kennedy’s proposed bill. This legislation proposed a path towards citizenship for undocumented workers, provided they pay a fine and file back taxes, learn English and pass a criminal background check. This bill has just been defeated in the senate on Friday April 7th 2006, by the combined efforts of Senators Bill Frist and Harry Reid.
Molly Ivins, political commentator, points out that racists seem to think that illegal workers- the hardest working, poorest people in the U.S. are getting away with something.
She accurately sums up the US- Mexico border situation as being porous. "When you want cheap labor you open it up, when you don’t, you shut it down. It works for our benefit it always has."
Marc cooper of The Nation, states "seems to me that when an entire population -- who, after all, cleans our offices, cuts our lawns, serves our food, makes our beds, tends to our children and pays taxes but gets no refunds -- is threatened with criminalization, it has the right and necessity to politically mobilize. It's asking them a lot, don't you think, to remain silent and impassive as their arrest and deportation are actively being debated."
Earl Ofari Hutchchinson sees the movement as similar to the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's. Poor Peoples March meshed the Civil Rights movement for Black rights with a broader movement for Civil Rights of Other Minorities.
The Immigrants Rights Movement needs to build coalitions with women’s groups, the Left, African Americans and Asian American struggles for justice, to truly transform into a new Civil Rights Movement. Once we understand that Immigrant rights, even if they are illegal and undocumented are Civil rights can we begin to debate immigration reform.
This country has been built by immigrants from around the world. No one except the Native Americans can claim this land as being theirs. We left our lands to get away from categorizations, of binary oppositions of us versus them, native vs foreign. We came to New York to live with the world in harmony, not in fear of deportation or injustice.
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