Tell the White House & Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform this year

United Farm Workers
June 25, 2009

Pass comprehensive immigration reform this year!

United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez issued the below statement today (June 25, 2009) from the union's Keene, Calif. headquarters following President Obama's meeting at the White House with top congressional leaders on immigration reform. Please read it and then take action and send your message the president and key congressional leaders.

The United Farm Workers is grateful to President Obama for moving the process of immigration reform forward with today’s meeting at the White House. We take heart from the Democratic congressional leadership's commitment to place comprehensive reform on the agenda this year. But there are those who say 2009 is not the year to address this pressing issue.

In April 1963, in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Dr. King wrote, "For years now I have heard the word, 'Wait!'...We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'"

In June 1963, addressing the nation to propose the Civil Rights Act, President Kennedy reminded Americans, "Those who do nothing are inviting shame...Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality."

In September 1965, "Ahora es cuando!" ("Now is the time!") became the rallying cry of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers when they took a stand for justice and humanity by beginning the historic Delano grape strike.

Now is the time to move forward with a comprehensive immigration reform bill that recognizes reality and embodies equity for hard-working immigrant families, businesses and the American people who have been plagued for too long with a broken immigration system.

Across all groups of voters, the American people desire a just and practical solution. A grassroots national campaign is behind comprehensive reform. The congressional leadership and the President are for it. Let both Democrats and Republicans, in President Kennedy's words, "recognize right as well as reality" and pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.

Please click on Title above to take action!

It's time for Congress to stop legitimizing hate groups

Presente.org

The recent double murder of Brisenia and Raul Flores is just the latest act of violence flowing from the anti-immigrant sentiments of groups like FAIR and the “Minutemen.” Please join us in calling on leaders in the House and Senate who oversee immigration policy to renounce these groups and stop giving them an audience. Congress must stand up to this kind of hate and extremism!

The Bloody Truth Behind Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric

by Sally Kohn
Huffington Post
June 16, 2009

A week after a white supremacist attacked the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and on the day that three teenagers are being sentenced in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, for brutally beating and killing a Mexican immigrant, it's time we confront the fact that behind violently anti-immigrant and supremacist rhetoric is a real urge and a real encouragement for actual violence...

Judge Halts Deportation of 4, Cites ICE Conduct

By Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor
Monday, June 8, 2009
New Hampshire Register

...The judge found the actions of the agents, where they forcibly entered private homes and failed to demonstrate probable cause for arrest were not even “on the margin” of acceptable behavior.