Thread: El Paso: Next Stop on the Gutierrez Amnesty Tour

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11911255

Families divided
1,500 call for immigration reform in El Paso rally
Rally features stories of separation
By Darren Meritz / El Paso Times
Posted: 03/14/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

EL PASO -- Moving lawmakers to adopt comprehensive immigration reform and starting a grassroots movement of Americans who need U.S. immigration law changed was the focus of an emotional community meeting Friday night attended by about 1,500.

The meeting was led by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Chicago, who stopped in El Paso in the latest of a 17-city tour of the United States aimed at hearing testimonials from immigrant families about how deportations and current U.S. immigration policy is breaking apart households.

"The issue of immigration is a national issue since we have families divided across America," he said. "Comprehensive immigration reform is going to bring millions of people out of the shadows and into the day, and out of the state of exploitation they're in."

At Templo de Alabanza in El Paso, the standing-room-only crowd greeted Gutierrez, waving banners that read, "Deportation is not the answer! Legalization is the solution!" and chanting "Legalization, now!" in Spanish.

During a revival-style presentation with lively religious invocations, three U.S. citizens whose households have been split by deportation told their stories.

Blanca Gonzalez said her nephew was at a farmers market when sheriff's deputies asked him for his identification, then reported him to immigration officials who began deportation proceedings. People in her community, she said, fear contacting law enforcement when they need help because they might get deported.

Annabelle Galindo, a pregnant mother of six, said her husband has been at the Otero County Detention Center for almost three months and will be repatriated to Mexico soon. Galindo fears he'll never make it back to the United States, or that she'll have take her children to Mexico, where they could starve.

And 11-year-old Iván Cadena, who was born in a Las Cruces hospital and has a heart condition, told how his mother was detained for allegedly claiming to be a U.S. citizen when she is not. She did that, he said, because she didn't understand the English-language document she signed.

"I don't really feel good when she's not around. I feel there's an emptiness in the house," he said, standing next to his father. "She said that if she crossed the border, she would never see me again."

Gutierrez and Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, who also attended, said the environment for immigrant families could improve under the Obama administration. They also said comprehensive immigration reform is now more likely.

"(President) George W. Bush prioritized comprehensive immigration reform, and when he failed in the Senate two years ago, the response was family raids and deportations among the most vulnerable among us," Gutierrez said.

"I think in the United States of America, most Americans find it unuseful, unnecessary and tragic that the government is using its power to take a mother away from her children."

More than 5 million children in the United States are believed to have been separated from a parent by deportation or removal situations, Gutierrez said. While traveling from city to city to listen to immigrant families, Gutierrez said he's found the stories take on a similar note, each one illustrating how U.S. immigration law forces parents from their children or brothers from their sisters.

Harder still, he said, is hearing stories about U.S. service members who, while deployed, have a spouse going through deportation or removal proceedings.

Reyes said at Friday's rally that Bush-era policies toward immigration -- which he said have separated families and have caused other hardships on immigrant families -- could be reversed with Obama's support. Reyes added that the Hispanic caucus plans to meet with Obama in about two weeks.

"I think all of us in the Hispanic caucus campaigned for President Obama with that as our understood priority," Reyes said. "We understood that he was going to support us on this."

Darren Meritz may be reached at dmeritz@elpasotimes.com; 546-6127.

spare me the SOB stories. Illegal is illegal is illegal. No matter where you came from or what you look like.
Parents that come here illegally know they are illegal and know that any day they can be arrested and deported. They are the only ones that bare the blame.

As for these meetings in a church, well, this is a violation of seperation of church and state. It can also be seen as an ethics violation on the part of Luis Gutirrez and any other elected official who attends.

Now, fellow Americans, you want to get really mad.. YOU are paying the bill for Guiterrez and his clan to fly all over the country and holding these meetings..
How do you like that? getting screwed over by one of the most racist hispanics in congress and he is working AGAINST america and for his own people

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez ~ Bought and paid for by governments from south of the border

it seems that since making the first comment on here that most of the people who have replied since are in total agreement.
there is the usual one or two who say they pay their fair share of taxes and should be entitled to everything