Thread: Immigrants rally to DEMAND fair treatment

Immigrants rally to DEMAND fair treatment



Thursday, February 28th 2008, 4:00 AM

Seven hundred New Yorkers - most of them immigrants - gathered in Flushing on Saturday to send a powerful message: "We demand to be treated with dignity and fairness, and we will not be ignored or intimidated."

Men and women, young and old, they came, many with children in tow, from Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens to pack the Ganesh Temple auditorium in Flushing. The crowd was impressive for its size and for its determination to be heard.

"We are here today ... to work together to make New York a city responsive to the needs of the people who work and live here," Ana MarÃ*a Archila, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, told the crowd.

With more than 4,000 members, Make the Road New York was created last year with the merger of the Latin American Integration Center and Make the Road by Walking, two grass-roots community organizations.

"I would like to welcome the elected officials, our allies in the labor movement and the community organizations - and all of you," Archila said to the enthusiastic approval of the audience.

No less enthusiastic were the 10 elected officials who attended the event and embraced the community's demands. All of them promised to help.

It would have been difficult for Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-Bronx), City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Controller Bill Thompson, state Sen. John Sabini (D-Jackson Heights), Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing) and the other members of the Council and the state Senate present at the meeting to do otherwise. The community's demands were nothing if not fair, and went a long way toward defining the priorities of immigrant New Yorkers.

Increased educational and economic opportunity, comprehensive immigration reform, healthy and affordable housing, equal access to government benefits and services and the expansion of civil rights across our communities for immigrants, workers, students and gay people - this is what the people gathered at the Ganesh temple were asking for.

To stress even more the urgent need for those demands to be met, several community members shared moving personal stories of mistreatment and discrimination. One of them was Alejandro Carreras, who came from Ecuador six years ago and joined Make the Road by Walking two years ago.

"Due to my immigration status, it has been difficult for me to find a dignified job in this country," he told the audience. "I have to do very hard jobs, but I have no choice because I have to support my family and myself."

Carreras went on to recount a terrible experience of exploitation and abuse by an employer who took advantage of his undocumented status.

"Some time ago, I worked with a cement contractor. I worked for him two weeks, under the sun. And when the job was finished, he did not pay me one single cent," he said.

Then he added something that many others in the audience already had learned the hard way.

"Unfortunately," Carreras said, "these experiences are all too frequent. Thousands of workers in New York have had similar experiences," he said.

And, addressing the elected officials directly, he added, "That's why I am asking you to help pass stronger laws in New York to protect immigrant workers."
aruiz@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/que ... atmen.html

Make the Road New York will promote justice, equality and opportunity by:

1) Building a new level of political power for low-income and recent immigrant New Yorkers:

Traditionally, low-income people are spoken for. Clergy, elected officials, policy advocates and others purport to represent low-income communities, but they rarely, if ever, consult those they seek to represent. In communities from Bushwick to Corona to Port Richmond, a majority of residents are excluded from electoral participation by age and immigration status. Language barriers further impede political participation. For example, in Bushwick eighty-five percent of households do not speak English in the home.

Make the Road New York, though, is representative of and directly accountable to our communities. Dues-paying members elect representatives to our Board of Directors from among our membership, and our Board of Directors sets the vision and goals of our organization. We have built a sizeable, trained base of members. Through participation in our organization, these people become uncharacteristically politically powerful among low-income New Yorkers. They are the people that get called by the press and they are the people who speak at public hearings about the policies that shape lives and communities throughout New York City.

similar topic:

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-635707-.html#635707

Wow, in both articles the words 'legal' and 'illegal' appear how many times...?
Yep, you got it: 0.

An 'immigrant' <> 'illegal alien'

Once again I'll ask the question, "Where was ICE when invaders were in open view making demands on a country that they owe no allegiance?"

They sure got lots of power . Marches all the time with Give Me , Give Me .
White people are the ones hurting now but No Marches .Fighting depressed wages to pay taxes etc etc. Something seems awfully Racist here , is it me ?

"dignity and fairness"

There is nothing dignified or fair about breaking the law. Criminals do not deserve dignify or fairness. They are and will remain.....CRIMINALS.

There they go again , lumping all immigrants together.

I have never, nor will ever, DEMAND anything in the US, I'm just grateful to be here - legally.

Immigration Terminology 101

With the vitriolic immigration debate roiling in all parts of our country, it is important to understand terminology. Be prepared to dispel the half-truths and no truths of the way those who are illegally in our country are described by their advocates. Knowledge is power:

ILLEGAL:
1.) Unlawful; illegitimate; illicit; unlicensed.
2.) Illegal, unlawful, illegitimate, illicit, criminal can all describe actions not in accord with law.
3.) Illegal refers most specifically to violations of statutes.
4.) Prohibited by law

ALIEN:
1.) a person who is not a citizen of the country.
2.) in the United States any person born in another country to parents who are not American and who has not become a naturalized citizen. There are resident aliens officially permitted to live in the country and illegal aliens who have sneaked into the country or stayed beyond the time allowed on a visa.

INVADE:
1. to enter like an enemy: Locusts invaded the fields
2. to enter as if to take possession: To invade a neighbor's home
3. to enter and affect injuriously or destructively, as disease: Viruses that invade the bloodstream.
4. to intrude upon: To invade the privacy of a family.
5. to encroach or infringe upon: to invade the rights of citizens.
6. to permeate: The smell of baking invades the house.
7. to penetrate; spread into or over: The population boom has caused city dwellers to invade the suburbs

Those illegally in a country are not "immigrants". There is no such thing as an "illegal immigrant". An immigrant is involved with an established and orderly procedure of immigration (entering a country to which one is not native in order to settle there by legal process).

They are not immigrants, not undocumented immigrants (Kennedy and the PC fan favorite), not undocumented workers, not undocumented Americans (Harry Reid’s favorite), not economic immigrants (Big Business and Wall Street favorite), not immigrants without work papers, not people who are working (Enrique Morone’s favorite), not migrant workers, not day laborers and not the “unbankedâ€

How much advance notice did others have? Could ICE be persuaded to raid the next one, I wonder?