Thread: LULAC panel discusses immigration issues

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LULAC panel discusses immigration issues
By Sue Davis, Correspondent
June 4, 2006

Speakers at a forum Saturday expressed hope that they could capture some of the political momentum gained during the marches in April and May opposing proposed immigration reform.

"We need to translate those thousands of marchers into votes," said Chris Espinosa, California state deputy director of League of United Latin American Citizens, which sponsored the event.

LULAC brought together speakers to address issues of education, politics and community organizing for the morning-long panel discussion on immigration at California State University, Channel Islands. The organization is an advocacy group for Hispanic causes and has approximately 115,000 members throughout the United States.

Speakers included Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers with César Chávez. Upon her introduction, Huerta received loud, sustained applause from the audience of about 150 people.

Huerta spoke for about 15 minutes, giving a bit of history about successful political actions she and Chávez had helped organize to improve life for immigrants, including lobbying for an amnesty program in 1986 that gave legal status to more than 3 million undocumented workers.

Huerta said she disagreed with President Bush's proposed guest worker program, calling it "a slave-worker program" and said that the recent focus on immigration was a tactic to distract the American public.

"Why the attack on immigrants, why?" Huerta asked. "That way the public is not focusing on what is important: the war."

Other speakers included Port Hueneme City Councilwoman Maricela Morales; CSUCI history professor Frank Barajas; Matt Strieker, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund; LULAC national public policy director Gabriela Lemus; and Charles Maxey, dean of the California Lutheran University School of Business.

Lemus and Strieker spoke on policy issues, highlighting the need to organize to oppose immigration reform that would criminalize the act of being an undocumented immigrant.

Strieker expressed concern that the most controversial parts of proposed reform bills would be broken up and quietly inserted into other legislation.

"We need to put pressure on people at every level," Strieker said.

Maxey gave an overview of the extent to which the Ventura County economy relies on the labor of immigrants, focusing specifically on agricultural workers.

Agriculture is a $1.3 billion annual business in the county, Maxey said, and without labor provided by its estimated 25,000 undocumented workers, the industry would fail and lead to the collapse of the county's economy.

"They do important work," Maxey said of the region's approximately 50,000 undocumented workers. "That work matters."

As I expressed to Senator McCain....workers in our agricultural business have merit as long as their numbers are not a threat to closing the industry down, but workers in other areas need to be removed. And those who are chosen to be allowed to stay here must abide by our laws without even considering citizenship unless it is well behind those who have done things legally.