Thousands march throuout U.S. for amnesty for immigrants

Special to the World

Thousands of immigrants marched in half a dozen cities thoughout the United States demanding amnesty for undocumented immigrants on Oct. 14. The regional marches were organized under the auspices of the National Coalition for Dignity and Amnesty for Undocumented Immigrants. Last year tens of thousands gathered in the nation's capital demanding amnesty.

The determination of the marchers could be seen in the slogans and signs. One slogan being raised in Spanish was "From north to south, from east to west, we want amnesty no matter what the cost." Signs said, "We are not requesting; we are demanding!" and "We demand because we produce!"

Laura Rivera, director of the New York City office of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), said that her organization has been fighting for an unconditional amnesty for undocumented immigrants. She praised the AFL-CIO for having changed its position earlier in the year and supporting amnesty for the undocumented.

Last February the AFL-CIO passed a resolution that said the "current system … is broken and needs to be fixed." The labor organization pointed out that immigration laws have created "a system that causes discrimination and leaves unpunished unscrupulous employers who exploit undocumented workers, thus denying labor rights for all workers."

Jenny Alexander, from the Immigrant Workers' Resource Center in Boston, said that, "We have 20 organizations from Boston. We have Brazilians, Irish, and Latinos. It's a broad group."

Alexander spoke of a Colombian woman who was forced to leave her country because of the violence there. She said, "Her son went to school and got good grades but, he can't go to a university because he has no papers. He can't get any scholarships. The immigration laws are blocking access to education, health, housing and labor rights."

Rosita Choy, a Costa Rican women working for the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said "Immigrant rights are human rights."

An undocumented Dominican woman from New York said that she has been in the country working for 12 years. She said that she recently lost her job and has been having a hard time finding one because of her status.

A retired Rhode Island Presbyterian minister, Rev. Jim Keller, said he was "here as a Christian. I think that this is where every religious person, clergy and laity, should be."

In Seattle the director of the UFW, Guadalupe Gamboa asked if it was "fair to have a work force that you rely on but not give them any rights?" at the march in that city.

In Austin, Texas, Rebecca Flores-Harrington, AFL-CIO director for the state, urged the crowd to vote for Albert Gore, because that was our hope for amnesty. Another speaker told the marchers that the Texas Department of Public Safety requires that a person have papers in order to obtain a drivers' license. This is an unfair law and forces people to break the law just to go to work or take their children to school.

People from El Paso, San Antonio, South Texas, Houston, and Dallas traveled hours just to participate in the march and rally.

In Chicago, the march for amnesty added another demand - the ending of the bombing of the Puerto Rican island municipality of Vieques.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), reiterated his plan to put in a bill for full unconditional amnesty, demanded an end to the Navy abuse of Vieques, and called on President Clinton to keep his promise to sign legislation now in the pipeline to extend amnesty to Haitians, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans in a program that originally included only Cubans and Nicaraguans, give amnesty to people left out the 1986 IRCA amnesty by government bungling and restore 245(i), the lapsed law that would allow undocumented relatives of citizens and legal residents to legalize themselves without going back to their country of origin, on the basis of a $1000 fine.

Baldemar Velazquez of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, besides reinforcing the call for amnesty, asked the crowd to organize solidarity for 300,000 migrant farm workers living and working in inhuman conditions in North Carolina. Velazquez reminded the crowd that to get the amnesty is only the first step, that the next is to make sure that all immigrant workers are organized so that they can fight for their rights at the workplace.

The day before the marches, a group of Republican members of Congress, headed by Lamar Smith of Texas, said that they would fight any proposed amnesty. The Republicans in the Senate have been delaying a bill submitted by the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts Edward Kennedy.

Martina Cruz, a leader of Latinos United for Justice from Lawrence, Massachusetts, said, "The answer is simple. We have to get rid of the people in Congress that won't make laws for the people." Cruz is from the Dominican Republic and became a citizen in time to vote in the last presidential elections.