While the news cycle today will no doubt continue to be dominated by the heinous murder of Dr. George Tiller, today ranks of organizations around the country officially joined the fight for comprehensive immigration reform.
Immigrant rights groups, churches and labor unions held 40 press conferences in 40 cities across the country to announce their participation in the Reform Immigration For America Campaign, a national grassroots effort that will begin lobbying the U.S. Congress for the passage of comprehensive reform legislation.
The stated goals of the group would provide eventual citizenship for the millions of undocumented individuals already here and would seek additional visa permits to decrease undocumented immigration as a whole. The campaign also supports provisions to strengthen workers rights and keep immigrant families together.
One important thing to note is that labor unions affiliated with Change to Win and the AFL-CIO—the country's two largest union groups—were at a vast majority of the press conferences held today, signaling that labor is actually coming through with its oath in April to jump on the issue, adding ranks of union members to the battle. Traditionally, union leaders have been reluctant to address immigration, and last time reform was debated in 2007 labor could not come to an agreed position on the failed legislation.
It's also no coincidence that the Reform Immigration For America Campaign will be holding its national summit in early June, just days before President Barack Obama is expected to meet with bipartisan members of Congress on June 8th to discuss crafting comprehensive reform. Approximately 400 people from across the country will be meeting in Washington, DC to "build momentum" for reform.
The vast majority of the campaign's affiliated groups are also located in cities and states with large Latino populations, meaning that groups on the ground there will be able to organize and pressure their local Congressional delegations to support reform.
Today the battle begins yet again to fix our broken immigration system. The ranks are organizing and Obama is already looking to address reform in the near future. It's a battle to do away with punitive laws that break apart parents and children. It's also a battle to recognize the throngs of people without social security numbers who work in the United States and pay taxes here. It will not be an easy bout. No doubt it will be riddled with a wide array of distortions and fear tied more to racism than an earnest concern for the law. But it's a battle that has to happen regardless, if there can be any hope of alleviating the confusion and suffering endemic in the U.S. immigration system.
(Cross-posted at Gabacha.com - Immigration news.)