From: "Wrevcoleman@aol.com" <Wrevcoleman@aol.com>

Media Advisory Contact: Emma Lozano: 773-671-1755


Post-Election Drive for Immigration Reform

Focuses on Family Separations


Francisca Lino and her U.S. citizen family – new symbol of the movement





*November 15th Chicago Rally Begins
New Initiative in Obama's Home City

*Recharging the Movement in Preparation
for the First 100 Days of the New Congress…

Chicago's Latino and Immigrant's Rights organizations began the fight to insert immigration reform into the newly emerging democratic majority before the democratic convention. Congressman Luis Gutierrez and dozens of Latino elected officials joined 60 organizations to form the Ya Basta Coalition. The Ya Basta coalition assembled the Chicago delegates to the democratic convention to pledge to make the demand for a moratorium on raids, deportations and separation of families at the convention. After the convention, the coalition mobilized at City Hall as Chicago's Mayor and City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for the moratorium, recharging the unity of the city in preparation for the battle to come.

In a series of rallies in the weeks leading up to the election, and in the midst of a massive voter registration and get out the vote campaign, the Lino family emerged as the symbol of the fight for an immediate moratorium and the passage of immigration reform in the first 100 days of the new congress. Francisca Lino, married to a U.S. citizen husband and the mother of four U.S. citizen children, was scheduled for deportation on November 21st. Francisca had no criminal record and her husband had applied for her adjustment of status. Her deportation was ordered when ICE ruled that her first attempt to cross the border illegally years ago disqualified her for adjustment of status. On October 21st, Congressman Gutierrez and hundreds of supporters confronted I.C.E. and won a temporary stay of deportation for an elated Lino family.

Motivated by the cruel and unjust threat of separation to this family, Congressman Gutierrez has called for a mass gathering of families threatened with separation by this nation's immigration reform on Saturday, November 15th, at St. Pius Catholic Church, 1901 S Ashland, beginning at 9 A.M.

"This meeting begins a campaign for a moratorium and for immigration reform in the first 100 days of the new congress based on the sacred unity of the family," said Gutierrez.

The movement that elected the first African American President began in Chicago with a strong African American Latino Coalition. The first call for a moratorium on the separation of families also came from Chicago and spread across the nation with the dramatic sanctuary of Elvira Arellano on Chicago's north side. The call from Elvira’s organization, Familia Latina Unida/Sin Fronteras, ignited the first of the major marches here on March 10th, 2005.


From Chicago's family neighborhoods, in the wake of the successful national elections, now comes the initiative for immigration reform in the first 100 days of the new administration. Plans for a national rally in Washington D.C. on January 21st, the day after the inauguration, are already well on the way. Si Se Puede!

For more information on the November 15th meeting or to set up interviews with families facing separation and organizers of the event, please contact:

Emma Lozano
Familia Latina Unida/Sin Fronteras
773/671-1798
psf@somosunpueblo.com