Cries for Immigration Reform Fill Mission Dolores

The San Francisco Chronicle
By Bridget Huber

More than 500 people from communities throughout the Bay Area packed the pews of the Mission Dolores Basilica Thursday night for an interfaith service calling for immigration reform and looking to inspiration from the late President John F. Kennedy and the book of Isaiah.

Standing beneath the church’s celestial dome, Leticia Medina, a leader with the San Francisco Organizing Project, had a message for the nation’s political leaders: ”We, the people, want immigration reform.”

Clergy from Christian, Muslim and Jewish congregations gathered on the altar to read passages from Kennedy’s 1958 book A Nation of Immigrants, which called for a reevaluation of U.S. immigration law.

Pastor Michael McBride quoted from a section of the book praising immigrants’ contributions to U. S. culture and the economy. “This has been the secret of America,” he continued, “a nation of people with fresh memories of old traditions who dared explore new frontiers.”

Bishop William Justice commended the crowd for its social justice work and said, “As clergy, it is our role to inspire that work — to lead with prophetic voices, to encourage the weary workers … and to cry with you at the pain we see in our communities,” he said.

Lulu Rodriguez, one of the event’s organizers, said Kennedy’s words were chosen because they remain inspiring more than 50 years after he wrote them. “We need a leader like him, with a strong voice that represents us all,” she said.

At least a dozen clergy from the Bay Area spoke to a crowd that included contingents from as far away as Sacramento as well as City Supervisors David Campos and David Chiu. Senator Dianne Feinstein was invited to the event but did not come, and her staff person who was supposed to attend canceled at the last minute.


City Supervisors David Campos and David Chiu attended the event. In his remarks, Chiu called on the crowd to take action. "We are the lucky ones. We are the ones who are here. We are the ones who can fight," he said. More than a quarter of the nation’s 11.9 million undocumented immigrants live in California, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to make immigration reform a priority. But, many who favor the reforms are worried these efforts will be stonewalled in the increasingly partisan senate or shelved longer in favor of efforts to reform healthcare and right the economy.

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Ellis Island is Closed: Ash Wednesday Rally for Immigrant Rights

by Alex DiBranco
category: Immigration Detention
Published February 17, 2010 @ 02:53PM PT

Walking around town today, you might have noticed gray smudges on certain foreheads. Yes, it's Ash Wednesday, a time when many Christians repent personal and societal sins. This year, some are marking the start of Lent not just with a symbol on their skin, but also with a march to protest against a flawed immigration system.

Marchers organized by the Pax Christi Summit began at Ellis Island earlier today, as a reminder that "Ellis Island is Closed" to all your tired, poor, and huddled masses; they will arrive at the Elizabeth, NJ, detention center by 6pm. As immigrant rights activist Shivali Shah writes in the Faster Times, observers -- both lay people and nuns and priests -- on the march have chosen to use this day to "repent for the sins of their generation for how we treat immigrant detainees in the US."

The protesters are particularly focused on inhumane treatment in detention centers, where conditions often rival third world jails -- for actual criminals. The majority of these detainees have not committed a crime -- they only violated immigration laws, and illegal presence in the country is a civil/administrative, not a criminal, offense. Shah reports that the Elizabeth Detention Center is infamous for brutal treatment of detainees, including physical assault, lack of health care, and denial of access to legal representation or even to make a phone call. Five reported deaths at the center are dogged by cover-ups and mistreatment, as revealed by an ACLU/New York Times Freedom of Information Request.

"Our immigration laws and policies must be aligned with our humanitarian values," says Kathy O'Leary, NJ Coordinator for Pax Christi. At the moment, that's clearly not the case -- if our current immigration and detention system reflects our humanitarian values, then our society has certainly lost its way.

Love Thy Neighbor -- Pass Immigration Reform

The Huffington Post
Jorge-Mario CabreraDirector of Communications and Public Relations, CHIRLA
Posted: February 3, 2010 01:56 PM

Drowned by 1,000 and more voices chanting "Viva Luis Gutierrez" and "Tu Puedes, Luis" (you can do it, Luis), the Representative from Illinois of Puerto Rican descent got up to the podium at Our Lady of Angels Church, better known as La Placita, to lift the spirits of a peoples pummeled through the ages, and to point his finger at the Obama administration's lukewarm forging of a road ahead to overhaul the nation's broken immigration system.

He did so in an earnest fashion, typical of him. He did so, red faced and passionate, addressing the crowd in the beautiful Boricua lexicon, fully aware his words were drops of water in a desert of hope. Immigrant families, their children, men and women, students, immigration rights advocates, faith leaders, and union members all watched in awe and welcomed the immigration reform champion to the city's oldest Catholic house of prayer.

Rep. Gutierrez arrived heaven-sent to Los Angeles this week, invited by the venerable labor leader, Maria Elena Durazo, to speak to their annual congress about labor laws and workers' rights. He took time off to talk about immigration reform to hundreds of advocates who came from all over the state bearing hundreds of difficult questions. He addressed the possible timeline ("If by April we have not introduced something, we will not have reform in 2010"). He spoke of challenges ahead ("It will be difficult, no doubt about it. But to those who oppose my plan, let them propose a better one"). And, he called upon the White House to humanize the immigrant plight ("We are illegals when it's convenient. We are criminals when it's not an election. We are human beings, and we cannot let them forget it.").

The Congressman was not bluffing when he warned that our community risks bitterness and apathy after so much disillusionment and deadlines past. During the nationally-syndicated El Piolin por la Manana radio show, the legislator heard from a caller named Geovanni. "Why don't you give up, Mr. Congressman," asked the caller. "We are not wanted in this country; we are not going to get anything good from them." Rep. Gutierrez listened, breathed deeply and responded:

If my wife had given up on me whenever I did something wrong, we would not be together still after 33 years of marriage. When you love someone, you tell them they are doing wrong because you want them to be a better person. I want my president to be the best one ever. I want him to excel. We do not have the luxury of giving up, my people, we cannot let this president down. We need to tell him he's being ill advised.
The crowd at La Placita heard the same exact message, straight from the horse's mouth. The Congressman added, "my wife and I were united by love and God. No one, not even the president of the United States of America, can undo what God has made. When we say we value families, we cannot mean we value some families above others. If you love thy neighbor, we must approve immigration reform. No more family separations, no more raids." The thunderous applause echoed the sentiment and underscored the deeply felt resentment of a community in crisis. A woman sitting in the front row lifted a little girl above her head as if to say, no one will separate me from this child. No one.

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