Posted July 12, 2007

Forum highlights immigration issues

Appleton meeting planned today

By Malavika Jagannathan
mjaganna@greenbaypressgazette.com

A generally favorable audience posed a handful of questions and comments — much of it focusing on a local Green Bay ordinance — at a forum on immigration reform Wednesday evening organized by a Milwaukee-area group.

Despite being billed as a forum where both sides of the debate could come together, few voices in opposition were heard. But that doesn't mean the event was necessarily unsuccessful, said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, a grass-roots organization that has organized a number of town-hall style meetings across the state.


"It's been mixed generally," Neumann-Ortiz said of the audiences in the five other stops prior to Green Bay on the Wisconsin Reality Tour. It stops in Appleton today. "I would have certainly welcomed more people who perhaps supported the ordinance. But even for those here, it's an important discussion."


The forum featured a number of presenters highlighting immigration on a national and local level as well as the personal testimonies of immigrants, including a woman who was jailed after a federal immigration raid last August in Whitewater.


But a recently passed Green Bay ordinance — which would require any applicant for a city license or permit to promise not to be an illegal immigrant or hire illegal immigrants — drew the greatest number of comments.


"The damage, fear and misunderstanding in the Hispanic community is great," said Matt Hollenbeck of the Hispanic Community Council of Northeastern Wisconsin, which split from the city after the ordinance was passed.


The organization plans to educate the local Hispanic population about the effects of the ordinance, although Hollenbeck said other local-level partnerships were necessary.


Although their work with social justice group JOSHUA drew them to the forum, Bellevue residents Lois Pulvermacher and Cheryl Galowski said they learned a lot about the complexities of the immigration system.


"It's amazing what we don't know," Galowski said. "I wish there were more city officials here to listen to this."


Only Alderman Jerry Wiezbiskie — who cast one of two dissenting votes on the Green Bay ordinance — was present.


"The part I really didn't know about was the global economy and how economic policies are forcing people out of Mexico into this country," Pulvermacher said. "Their intent is not devious. It's just to help their families."


Last week Congress failed to act a second time on a comprehensive immigration plan that could potentially have given an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country a path to legalization while reforming the existing immigration system.


One of those people would be Luz Guitron, who was jailed in Dodge County after a federal raid at her packing plant in Whitewater.


"I applied twice for a visa," Guitron said through an interpreter as she explained how she crossed the Mexican border to reunite with her children who were already here. "Both times I was denied. I decided to come because it had been eight years since I had seen my children. My plan was not to stay — I just wanted to see my family."


"I think the Green Bay ordinance is an expression of the failure of the federal government to fix a problem," Neumann-Ortiz said. "We see a need for (this event) because the national debate is so polarized. We want not a debate but a civil and respectful dialogue."

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