The launch of the Power Up! Summit today started a big week of activity on comprehensive immigration reform, with a focus on immigrant women and families.
The Power Up! Summit, organized the National Asian Pacific Women's Forum, features a conference today at the National Education Association in Washington, focusing on immigrant rights and reproductive justice for Asian American and Pacific Islander girls and women.
Follow the #powerup hashtag for more information.
The summit is carrying over to become a part of tomorrow morning's massive Rally #4ImmigrantWomen Youth & Families.
Organized and supported by an array of AAPI, Latina, women's rights, and immigrants' rights groups, the rally begins at 9:30 a.m. EDT at the Upper Senate Park.
Sen. Mazie Hirono - the first immigrant woman elected to the Senate and currently the only woman of color and only female immigrant in the Senate - will speak at the rally.
Shortly after the rally, Sen. Hirono will preside over the Judiciary Committee at 2 p.m. EDT (8 a.m. HST) at a hearing entitled "How Comprehensive Immigration Reform Should Address the Needs of Women and Families."
There are two SignOn petitions circulating in advance of the hearing (both with several hundred signatures at last check):
Thank you, Senator Hirono, for your bold leadership on behalf of immigrant women.
Senate Judiciary Committee members: hear the voices of immigrant women.
MoveOn will try to keep the momentum going on comprehensive immigration reform, with nationwide "I Am An American" house parties next weekend. A MoveOn email provides three reasons to sign up as a party host:
1. Really, there are 11 million reasons—11 million aspiring Americans ready to come out of the shadows and become citizens.
2. It's fun to meet other motivated MoveOn members from your community.
3. Take it from Tom S., a MoveOn member in Los Angeles, CA, who signed up to host a meeting and wrote, "We will meet, get to know one another, have a delicious meal, strategize on how to impact immigration reform, and have fun doing so."
So from Hawai'i to Washington and everywhere in between, there's a lot of action being paid to comprehensive immigration reform. Will it result in legislation this year?