Illegal immigrants plan multistate protest tour
By Alan Gomez and John McAuliff, USA TODAY
Updated 1d 13h ago
A group of illegal immigrants angry over deportations and racial profiling will embark on a multistate bus tour Monday that will culminate Sept. 1, just before the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
Organizers of the tour have plotted out a path starting in Phoenix that takes them through states and cities they say have enacted some of the harshest laws against illegal immigrants, such as Arizona's SB 1070. They plan a series of acts of "civil disobedience" along the way that they hope will shine a light on laws they say unfairly target them. They're doing it fully aware that they could end up in jail, or possibly in deportation proceedings.
"My mother is nervous," said Gerardo Torres, 41, a carpenter from Phoenix whose entire family lives in Mexico, "but she was a little bit happy that she might see me back in Mexico if I get deported."
Natally Cruz, 24, was brought to the country illegally by her family when she was 7. All her life, she tried to live under the radar, trying to avoid contact with police or immigration officials. When Arizona passed SB 1070, a law designed to crack down on illegal immigrants in 2010, she started protesting more openly.
She has joined a growing number of illegal immigrants who have "come out" in recent years, declaring their status in hopes of drawing more attention to their situation. She said that strategy is meant to counter people such as Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made targeting illegal immigrants a focal point of his term in office.
"If he sees our community scared, he has the motivation to keep doing what he's doing, to keep us in the shadows," Cruz said. "If we show him we're not scared, he kind of loses his power."
Sheriff Arpaio is defending himself against a class-action civil rights lawsuit against his department. The sheriff's office is accused of making discriminatory arrests based on skin color and heritage. That case is in trial.
The sheriff said a bus tour will not affect the way he does his job.
"You think these demonstrators talking about me are going to stop this from happening?" he said in a phone interview. "They're wasting their time talking about me, because I'm still going to enforce the laws. … They won't get me to surrender by taking a bus."
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who has long argued for strict enforcement of illegal immigration, isn't swayed by the bus tour argument either.
"With 23 million Americans unemployed or underemployed and 7 million illegal immigrants working in the U.S., we need to enforce our immigration laws to open up jobs for legal workers," Smith said.
B. Loewe, a spokesman for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, one of several groups cordinating the trip, said the bus will travel to Colorado, down through New Orleans, Atlanta and several other cities on the way to Charlotte.
Loewe said the group will end the trip just before the convention, where President Obama will formally receive his party's nomination for president, to try to force members of the party to stop the record number of deportations and reduce the strength of anti-illegal-immigration laws.
Obama's administration has taken some big strides to accommodate the Hispanic electorate, including a program announced in June that will allow up to 800,000 illegal immigrants brought to the USA as children to stay. But he has upset many in the community, partly because his administration has set a record each year with the number of people it deports.
That is the kind of policy the illegal immigrants hope to change through the tour.
"I am nervous, but for me, the status quo is not an option anymore. I have to fight for my rights. I have to fight for those who are more afraid than me," Torres said. "I want to do it for them."
One Old Vet
Illegal immigrants plan multistate protest tour
Illegal immigrants bus to Charlotte
Illegal immigrants bus to Charlotte
politico.com
By TIM MAK
7/31/12 7:54 AM EDT
A busload of illegal immigrants has begun a month-long, cross-country tour of protests culminating at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., according to reports.
Approximately 30 men and women departed Phoenix, Ariz., on Sunday on a trip scheduled to hit states that have passed aggressive laws against illegal immigration, reports the Charlotte Observer.
The bus will pass through Colorado, New Orleans, Atlanta and several other cities en route to Charlotte, just before the start of the convention on Sept. 3, according to USA Today.
“We are tired of the injustice,” Fernando Lopez, an illegal immigrant who is originally from Mexico but now lives in Phoenix, told the Observer. “We are tired of the indignity.”
The civil-disobedience demonstrations during the convention will take place in Mecklenburg County, N.C., where police officers check the immigration status of those who are arrested. But a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office there told the Observer that officers will only detain illegal immigrants who’ve been arrested for committing a crime.
Read more: Illegal immigrants bus to Charlotte - Tim Mak - POLITICO.com
