February 11, 2010 4:58 PM
Barry Smith / Freedom Raleigh Bureau

RALEIGH — A new North Carolina immigration organization has formed. While it focuses on a hot issue of the day, it differs from most other immigration groups in that it isn’t an advocacy organization.

"We’re trying to motivate understanding," said Randy Jones, who is president of Uniting NC’s board of directors. "We’re not advocating any particular position. We’re not trying to solve anything."

Jones is not the Randy Jones who serves as spokesman for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Department.

Uniting NC is still rather small. It’s trying to hire a part-time director.

Yet it has already undertaken a billboard advertising campaign, with signs going up in the Asheville, Charlotte, Rocky Mount, Smithfield and Washington, N.C., areas. It has also sponsored some public service announcements on radio stations in the Research Triangle area and has some video messages from immigrants posted on its Web site, unitingnc.org.

Last year, it conducted a community meeting at an Elon church attended by 50 to 60 people, Jones said. The meeting took place on the same Saturday as a forum at nearby Elon University on immigration and the 287(g) law-enforcement program, Jones said.

"We’re talking about people, human beings and the kinds of stories they have," Jones said. "You can talk about people as being documented and undocumented and not think about who they are and why they’re here."

Tony Asion, executive director of El Pueblo, a Raleigh-based advocacy organization for Latinos, said his organization and Uniting NC have different missions.

"The biggest difference between them and us is we are a Latino organization, trying to promote the importance of immigration reform, whereas Uniting NC is more of trying to get people to appreciate and accept immigration period, whether they be Hispanic or not," Asion said. "They don’t get involved in the politics of it, whereas I guess we do."

Ron Woodard, director of NC Listen, which promotes stricter immigration policies and enforcement, said that he believed Uniting NC was using emotion as a means of diverting attention from the number of immigrants entering the country.

"They talk about the warm and fuzziness of immigration," Woodard said. "I think they’re trying to put a flavor on it that the numbers don’t matter."

Woodard said everything about immigration has to do with numbers.

"Illegal immigration wouldn’t be that bad if you only had a thousand people coming into the country this year," Woodard said.

Jones said that Uniting NC is hoping to reach out to more groups that have a more restrictive point of view on the immigration issue.

"We’re open to and certainly wouldn’t want to exclude people from across the spectrum on the immigration issue," Jones said.

In addition, he said Uniting NC will be reaching out to people in the law enforcement community since immigration law enforcement is becoming an issue.

He said the goal is to promote understanding.

"People are people," Jones said. "They have stories. If you take a moment to listen to the stories, hopefully it leads to more understanding."

fedupsoutherner wrote:
Who's PAYING for this?? Probably not "underprivileged" illegal aliens!!
Billboards are EXPENSIVE!!! One billboard on interstate will run $4,000-up every month!!

866-DHS-2-ICE toll-free all-states phone number for reporting illegal aliens to INS.
2/12/2010 3:35 AM EST on thetimesnews.com
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sagacious1 wrote:
The three major components of immigration control — deterrence, apprehension and removal—need to be strengthened by Congress and the Executive Branch if effective control is ever to be reestablished. Controlling illegal immigration requires a balanced approach with a full range of enforcement improvements that go far beyond the border. These include many procedural reforms, beefed up investigation capacity, asylum reform, documents improvements, major improvements in detention and deportation procedures, limitations on judicial review, improved intelligence capacity, greatly improved state/federal cooperation.
2/11/2010 5:18 PM EST on thetimesnews.com
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hectorcarreon wrote:
Maybe they can organize a love fest with natives who have been victims of illegal immigrants' misdeeds and impositions on society at large.
2/11/2010 5:04 PM EST on thetimesnews.com
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