Thread: Immigration activists arrested at Capitol

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Updated: 2:07 p.m. on Thursday, August 1, 2013

Dozens of immigration-rights activists were arrested outside the Capitol on Thursday in a civil-disobedience action they said marked an escalation in their push to get Congress to pass an immigration bill this year.

Chanting slogans and demanding an end to deportations, more than 40 activists, including some major figures in the labor movement, blocked traffic on Independence Avenue, forcing police to arrest them.

Three of those arrested were in the country illegally, according to organizers who said they had not yet learned what the official charges were.

Authorities will have to decide how to handle the illegal immigrants who were arrested and whether they will be put in deportation proceedings — though that seems unlikely given the administration’s decision to target only serious criminals for deportation.

The activists said the action was the first of what will be a summer of protests and civil disobedience as they try to pressure Congress to act.

“If it takes a million of us to march on Washington, we’ll do that too,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who came out to support those being arrested.

About 200 activists cheered from the sidewalk as their fellow protesters were arrested, with some even chanting the names of their friends as police put plastic handcuffs on them and put them into waiting vans.

The Senate passed an immigration bill granting legal status to most illegal immigrants earlier this summer, but the House is missing an informal deadline to act before the end of this week.

Fearing momentum slipping away, activists have said they will try to make the cost of inaction too high for all sides by staging more protests and taking the fight back to the home districts and states of members of Congress.

“I think there’s a sense that if there is no ramp-up, there’d be no consequences,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, Arizona Democrat.

The protests come on the heels of another action in Arizona last week, where nine illegal immigrants crossed into Mexico then tried to regain admittance to the U.S., saying they would qualify for President Obama’s non-deportation policy for so-called “Dreamers,” who were brought to the U.S. as children and are considered the most sympathetic cases in the immigration debate.

Calling themselves the Dream 9, they are being held by immigration authorities and have staged a hunger strike.

A number of members of Congress have called for the administration to release the activists, highlighting the difficult situation the White House finds itself in. Mr. Obama is pushing for an immigration deal out of Congress, but in the meantime he says he cannot stop deportations.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ested-capitol/

Agence France-PresseAugust 1, 2013 15:03
40 arrested in Washington pro-immigration protest

(Globalpost/GlobalPost)

Police arrested 40 people outside the US Capitol Thursday, dispersing a protest against Congress' failure to pass immigration reform
legislation.

Shouting "Undocumented, unafraid!" protesters sat down in a street adjacent to the Capitol and blocked traffic until police began handcuffing them and putting them into police vans.

Organizers said four undocumented immigrants were among those arrested, and that further civil disobedience actions were planned at Capitol Hill locations later in the day.
"Today we're hundreds, tomorrow we'll be thousands, and if we have to bring a million people to Washington DC we will do that, too," Democratic congressman Luis Gutierrez told the crowd.
"Do I believe that goal and objective (of immigration reform) is within reach? Yes. But you must maintain a consistent and persistent demand on the Congress of the United States to act," he said.
Gutierrez has been instrumental in seeking to cobble together a broad reform plan in the House after the Senate passed comprehensive immigration legislation in June.
House leaders have said the lower chamber would ditch the Senate's approach and pass piecemeal bills separately addressing issues like border security and what to do with the so-called "Dreamers," undocumented children brought to the United States through no fault of their own.
But the Republican-controlled House is signalling it will not pass a bill that puts the 11 million people living in the shadows on a path to citizenship, as the Senate bill did.
"The urgency of the situation is too great," Eliseo Medina, a member of the Service Employees International Union who was arrested Thursday, said in a statement.
"People are dying in the desert as they try to cross the border from Mexico, thousands of immigrants have been deported and every day families are being torn apart. We need to fix the system and we need to fix it now."
Senators hope to conference with members of the House after the August recess to strike what could be the most sweeping US immigration reform in a generation, but critics say the lower house has been slow to act.
"We are angry that they are not producing action and we're willing to escalate to risk arrest and get arrested because what's happening is unjust," Kimberley Propeack, director of pro-immigration group CASA in Action, told AFP.
Congress goes on summer recess at week's end, and House members have shown little urgency about the issue despite a flurry of action earlier this year when a "Gang of Eight" senators unveiled their huge bill and helped push it through the Senate.
Some Republicans are scrambling to draw the support of Hispanics after Democratic President Barack Obama was re-elected in November with more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130801/40-arrested-washington-pro-immigration-protest

Gee where was Paul Ryan or Marko Rubio or Eric Cantor or Poncho Via (oops Poncho Via is dead, well if he were alive I'm sure he would have been there)? You mean to tell me they were not there lying on the ground, chanting and making the police drag them away with their leftists, old hippie no borders, extremists pals?

Come on patriots do not let these people "out shout us." Get on the telephones, email write letters and RECRUIT NEW PEOPLE TO JOIN US. As Michelle Bachman has advised us "melt the telephones."

There is a DVD that should be very useful to recruit new members. It is a documentary about how bad the illegal immigration open borders crisis is. They are selling it really cheap $19.99 for 5 copies. Don't let the price fool you it is a well done documentary. They are selling in cheap to get the maximum numbers of viewers. It should wake up a lot of people who are apathetic. Look up the DVD on the internet by its title: "They Come to America II."

There is also a prequel to it called "They Come to America I." I have not seen it but it ought to be very good also. Order these DVDs and give them to anyone who is willing to look at them. Most people will not read a book but they will watch a DVD. Congress will be on recess throughout August this should give you time to order these DVDs and get them in the hands of other people in time to make them concerned enough to call their Congressmen when they start work again in September.

Yard signs (this ain't no time to be timid), bumper stickers (make your own), e-mails, post to every conservative blog on the web, call local offices Congressmen, state Republican Parties, college Republicans, neighbors, friends, family, open letter petitions and think up new stuff. Work, work, work, work.

They re demanding that which they are not entitled to.