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 News from Around the Americas | May 2006 
Immigrants Set to Rally in Washington, Press Congress for Reform
 Antonio Rodriguez - AFP
| | Thousands are set to rally in the US capital Wednesday to press Congress for immigration reform, just days after President George W. Bush ordered National Guard soldiers to help seal the border with Mexico. (AFP/Scott Olson) |
Thousands are set to rally in the US capital Wednesday to press Congress for immigration reform, just days after President George W. Bush ordered National Guard soldiers to help seal the border with Mexico.
Major Hispanic pro-immigrant groups organizing the event are hoping to repeat the success of a rally on April 10, when more than 150,000 protested outside Congress.
The demonstration comes as the US Senate renewed debate Monday on immigration reform, which had been mired in partisan bickering for more than a month.
It also follows Bush's announcement late Monday that up to 6,000 National Guard soldiers could be deployed along the US' porous southern border beginning next month for up to one year to help stop the flow of illegal immigration.
Bush said any effort to tighten US borders must be coupled with measures to help the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, more than half of whom are from Mexico, to work in the country legally.
Rally organizers feel they are on the verge of success.
"We are not going to stop just before reaching the finishing line to victory," said Emma Lozano, head of the Chicago-based Centro Sin Fronteras, one of the large Hispanic pro-immigration groups helping organize the rally.
Lozano, speaking at a press conference Tuesday, blasted Bush's speech as "hypocritical" because even as he called for ways to legalize undocumented workers, sweeps by immigration control agents continue across the country.
On May 1 more than one million people marched in several US cities demanding new immigration laws in an event dubbed "A Day Without Immigrants."
But immigrants and their supporters were split, and few rallied in Washington.
For the Wednesday demonstration event organizers are emphasizing unity.
"The people have asked for it," said Jaime Contreras, who heads at Washington-based pro immigration coalition. "Today we are here to announce that the movement is more united than ever."
Juan Jose Gutierrez, who heads the May 1 Coalition and supported the "Day Without Immigrant" boycott, also downplayed differences.
"We are going to prioritize everything that unifies us, because we understand that this movement's formula for success is an unbreakable unity of all the organizations," he said.
Organizers said they will not only protest, but that they also plan to personally lobby members of Congress.
Marchers are set to gather at 4 pm (2000 GMT) at the National Mall, near Capitol Hill, for a two-hour protest.
In December the House of Representatives passed a bill making illegal entry a crime, a proposal that helped galvanize the massive protests of the past months.
The Senate is debating measures that would strengthen border security and provide a path for most of the undocumented migrants living in the United States to work legally.
The House and Senate versions then must be reconciled, and a final bill presented to the president to be enacted into law.
Even though Bush's Republican Party control both chambers of Congress, the president's proposals are strongly opposed by many House Republicans.
"Thinly veiled attempts to promote amnesty cannot be tolerated," said Tom Price, one of the House Republicans demanding a tough line on immigration.
The heated immigration debate has also galvanized groups like the Minutemen, largely white citizen vigilantes who carry out their own patrols of the border and denounce illegal immigrants. |
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