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 News from Around the Americas | February 2007 
Mexican, U.S. Lawmakers Call for Deportation Moratorium
 Eunice Moscoso - Cox News Service
The United States should stop deporting illegal immigrants and separating families while Congress works on reforming immigration laws, a group of lawmakers from Latin America and several Democratic House members said Thursday.
The foreign delegates from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, on a two-day visit to Capitol Hill, pledged to work with their U.S. counterparts to fix the immigration system, which they said has led to a "family crisis" in Mexico and a staggering loss of life along the border. They also promised to help improve security, which they said was of paramount importance, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"About 550 Mexicans are dying (each year) in their effort to cross the border - 1.5 each day, an alarming number," said Jose Edmundo Ramirez Martinez, a member of the Mexican Congress and secretary of the Commission on Population, Borders, and Migration issues, at a Capitol Hill news conference.
In addition, he said that "one Mexican per minute is leaving his family" to go the United States, which disintegrates families and leads to other problems such as alcoholism and drug addiction.
The Mexican lawmakers included representatives from various political parties who said they were united on the immigration issue.
Jose Jacques Medina, a member of the Congress in Mexico who led the delegation, said the immigration crisis is a human problem that begs a human solution and that the United States, Mexico and other nations should work together to become "one America on one continent."
The meetings between the U.S. and Latin American lawmakers upset some critics of illegal immigration.
"Millions of people are working in this country illegally and sending home billions of dollars in remittances. Those dollars help to prop up corrupt and incompetent governments," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo, an outspoken critic of illegal immigration. "It's not surprising that representatives from those governments would be here lobbying ... to keep the dollars flowing."
Tancredo also criticized some members of the Black and Hispanic Caucuses who met with the foreign lawmakers.
"What is discouraging is the apparent willingness of those two groups to put other countries' interest above our own," he said. Tancredo has called for an end to the Black and Hispanic caucuses because he says they promote "racial exclusivity."
Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Rep. Brian Bilbray, R- Calif., chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, said that Mexican officials should be looking at the problems in their own country that cause so many to leave before criticizing the United States and that a moratorium on deportations will only increase illegal immigration.
He said there is nothing wrong with lawmakers from Mexico talking to American officials, but they should not "dictate the terms" of U.S. policy.
The U.S. and foreign lawmakers are pushing for a broad immigration law that would give illegal immigrants a path to legal residency and citizenship.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, a strong proponent of such a law, said immigration is a "justice issue."
"We must accept and welcome brothers and sisters who have invested in this country. We must reunite families. We must make moms and sons, one," she said.
Other House members at the news conference included Reps. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill. and Hilda Solis, D-Calif., who spearheaded the meetings with the foreign lawmakers.
Alongside them, the 7-year-old son of an illegal immigrant and community leader in Chicago made a plea to the Bush administration to halt deportation hearings for his mother, Elvira Arellano.
Arellano made national headlines last year when she refused to surrender for deportation and took refuge in a Methodist church.
"I want President Bush to stop deportations so that my mommy and other families get to stay in the United States," said the boy, Saul Arellano. |
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