This is a big issue, but one that needs to be tackled ASAP.
With many eyes focused on the health care debate seven blocks away at the U.S. Capitol, an estimated 200,000 people rallied for immigration reform on the National Mall. They came from California and Florida and the neighborhoods around Florida Avenue in Washington, DC. Like the “mega-marches” that exploded on the American political scene in the spring of 2006 – and remain the largest series of demonstrations in American history – the message at this massive rally was clear and loud: fix our broken immigration system, stop the deportations that are splitting up families, and allow immigrants to come to the U.S. legally and to earn legal status if they are already here illegally.
The President, who by all reports, was feverishly working the phones with Democratic House Members on health care, delivered a video address to affirm his commitment to passing immigration reform and added the magic words “this year” that the crowd and organizers were hoping to hear.
The strongest and most enthusiastically received remarks came from Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the only Latino in the Senate, and Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL), the point person for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on immigration reform and the most visible leader on the issue in the Congress, but dozens of Democratic House lawmakers — and one Republican, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida – made their way to the stage… [emphasis added]
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I support the demonstrators aims. While I agree with critics that illegals should not be here illegally, they wouldn’t be here were it not for the willingness of US corporations to exploit their labor. It is those corporations, along with most of the GOP, who want exploitation to continue, that are most strongly opposed to immigration reform. We need to give these people a path to citizenship. I would like to see an immediate halt to deportation of those who have not committed crimes while here.
I find it particularly disturbing that this rally received far less media coverage that the tiny gathering of obscene Teabaggers.
4 Responses to “Big Rally in DC for Immigration Reform”
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We need immigrants to keep our economy growing. To support the Social Security system. We’re not making enough babies. Just the way it is.
Truth, that’s an excellent point. I think another reason for so much GOP opposition is that they fear that white folk will soon become a minority.
Truth – LMAO. I agree with you TC – people shouldn’t have to sneak into the country to feed their families and if the corps wouldn’t provide them with jobs, they wouldn’t be here. This is a long time coming, but I don’t think it will be nearly as bad as HCR. At least I hope not.
Did Repubs always lie like this? I’m too young to remember the 60’s and most of the 70’s, but it seems like lately, they’ve really stepped up their game.
Lisa, for politicians in general, the only time you can be sure they are not lying is when their mouths are shut. Today’s most racist Republicans used to be Dixiecrats in the 1960s. They lied as much, but did so from our side of the aisle. They left the Democratic Party in protest over the passage of the voting rights act and the GOP embraced them.
Neverthless, the extremity of the lying over such breadth has no historical precedent since the days of Andrew Jackson.