http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=70696

Group advocates for immigrants, gets out vote
By Sarah N. Lynch, Tribune
July 31, 2006
Immigrants Without Borders is trying to raise awareness about immigration reform in Scottsdale, a city the group’s leader only recently learned has a “barrio.”

“I went there and I was so dumbfounded,” said Elías Bermúdez of Phoenix. “I saw people in the park playing soccer and ladies in the park selling their goodies from Mexico.”

On Thursday, several members of the organization’s east Phoenix-based committee held a meeting in a Hispanic community near Paiute Park in the hope of forming a Scottsdale committee.

Speaking to a group of 29 mostly Scottsdale residents, volunteer Hector Camacho said the situation facing undocumented immigrants is dire.

“That is the reason that we are uniting,” he said in Spanish. “If we come together, we are more likely to impact society.”

The statewide immigrant advocacy organization has 11 other committees including ones in Chandler, Mesa and Valleywide.

Bermúdez said other municipalities throughout Arizona, including Prescott, are also in the process of forming small grassroots committees as well.

“These committees are being formed by initiative,” he said. “We provide the example and assistance for a committee to be formed, and we help them with the logistics, but it’s all selfpropelled by the initiative of the individual within their own barrios.”

The group staged a protest a few weeks ago in front of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s downtown Phoenix office.

Several hundred of the group’s members marched with tape over their mouths while Bermúdez got down on his knees and spoke with Arpaio.

The march served to protest the way Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas have been using a new law that targets “coyotes,” or human smugglers, to include undocumented immigrants that seek the services of smugglers. So far, roughly 258 undocumented immigrants have been charged with conspiracy to smuggle themselves across the border.

Part of the group’s strategy for achieving immigration reform will include an effort to get people out to the polls for the upcoming primary and general elections this fall.

While many of the members of Immigrants Without Borders cannot vote, volunteer María DelCarmen reminded the group of Scottsdale Hispanics on Thursday that “Everyone in the world knows a citizen.”

DelCarmen and Camacho urged the residents to try and get at least one citizen to agree to go to the polls.

New members of the committee were asked to write down the names and numbers of citizens so that volunteers can call them later and remind them to vote this year.

The group also elected a president, treasurer and secretary of the newly formed committee. Mariana Valenzuela, who helped host the meeting, was selected as president.

“Please do not go to sleep,” DelCarmen declared in Spanish, noting that Hispanics must help themselves.

“What will happen to us? What will happen to our children, above all?”
Contact Sarah N. Lynch by email, or phone (480) 898-6535