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Latino leaders mobilize opposition to 'racist' anti-immigration bill

12:37 AM PST on Friday, January 13, 2006

By SHARON McNARY / The Press-Enterprise

Hundreds of people packed into the downtown San Bernardino city library Thursday to applaud critics of an immigration-reform bill and organize February as a month of opposition.

The immigration bill and an escalating anti-Latino and anti-immigrant political atmosphere led UCR Ethnic Studies professor Armando Navarro to call the meeting under the auspices of the National Alliance for Human Rights.

The bill, authored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., passed the House in December and is pending in the U.S. Senate, where political experts give it little chance of passage unless it is modified with the addition of a guest-worker program and deletion of provisions criminalizing the presence of undocumented immigrants.

Many of those in the crowd of more than 250 people responded with applause to speakers who expressed anger at their perception that immigrants and Latinos have been maligned in the escalating debate over border security.

"We are under a state of siege as a community," Navarro shouted in English and Spanish to the crowd. "We have to demonstrate that we have the power, the will and the courage to defeat this racist legislation."

Then Navarro spoke directly to a few members of anti-illegal immigration groups that were in the audience, including the Minuteman Project and SaveOurState.org, which has been mounting protests of day labor centers.

"Learn something from this experience and become a little more sensitive and less racist," Navarro said, later equating the Minuteman Project volunteer border watches that began last year with Ku Klux Klan border watches in the 1970s.

Arne Chandler, a Minuteman Project member, was in the crowd, curious to see how Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, planned to attack the Sensenbrenner bill. Chandler supports the bill, including its provision that would make it a criminal offense to be in the United States without permission.

He said he expected to learn how political forces would mass against the bill, and criticized the speakers for not distinguishing between legal and illegal immigration.

Speaker Herman Baca told the crowd that the Latino population of California could provide potent opposition to the "No Sensenbrenner" bill because, "There are only two kinds of power in politics. Money and people. We're poor, but we have a lot of people."

Baca, the U.S. Representative, criticized the bill as "a potential time bomb" that could subject the large Latino population of California to law-enforcement profiling, suspected of wrongdoing just because of skin color.

"People should not live in fear because of their color," Baca said.

Mexican Consul Carlos Giralt Cabrales, speaking in Spanish, told the crowd, "We insist that migrants are not criminals. They come from another country to seek opportunity."

He said the United States and Mexico share the region and must reach a negotiated solution over immigration, and that the answer lies in labor laws, not in immigration legislation.

Before the meeting, attendee Alejandro Murrieta Ahumada, of Yucaipa, said that Latino political leaders who once defended immigrant rights had fallen silent.

"They're more worried about financing their next campaigns. They're taking (Latino voters) for granted," Ahumada said. "The lack of accountability of leaders in our state is atrocious."

Baca, however, said he pays close attention to the roughly 35 percent of his constituents who are Latino voters and wants them to join him in opposing the bill.

"We need more people who will stand up and not be afraid to speak out."

Reach Sharon McNary at (951) 368-9458 or smcnary@pe.com