Thread: New "Parliament" to Defend immigrants

http://www.pe.com/localnews/immigration ... 2e5d1.html


By DAVID OLSON
The Press-Enterprise

Two Inland activists are on a committee that will set up a U.S.-Mexican "parliament" to discuss immigrant issues and defend the rights of Mexican immigrants in the United States.

Rosa Marta Zarate, program coordinator for the San Bernardino nonprofit LibrerÃ*a del Pueblo, and Daniel Morales, of the Riverside-based National Alliance for Human Rights, are among about 50 people who will help organize a March "parliament" in the United States.

The meeting is aimed at affecting the 2008 U.S. presidential elections, in which, Morales said, immigrants are being made scapegoats.

Morales and Zarate were among 10 Inland delegates at the inaugural parliament, which was held Friday and Saturday in Mexico City and featured more than 400 U.S.-based activists of Mexican origin and members of the Mexican Congress. Delegates voted to make the parliament a regular event.

Armando Navarro, a delegate in Mexico City and coordinator of the human-rights alliance, said he hoped the parliament would meet regularly, to prod the U.S. government to adopt pro-immigrant policies and Mexico to implement measures to reduce the poverty that causes Mexicans to seek work in the United States.

Among the other recommendations by parliament members, according to a news release by the Mexican Congress' House of Deputies:

Ask the Mexican government to use international meetings to denounce what parliament delegates described as human-rights violations against undocumented immigrants, including raids after which illegal immigrants are deported.

Halt construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border that is being built to stem illegal immigration.

Levy a 1 percent tax in Mexico on remittances that immigrants send to Mexico, to use for health care of children who live in the United States.

A spokesman for the Mexican embassy in Washington, D.C., was not available for comment Wednesday on the proposals.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which supports greater limits on immigration, predicted that Mexican President Felipe Calderon would balk at many of the recommendations.

"What these people at this meeting are saying is that the attempt by the United States of America to enforce its immigration laws is a violation of human rights ..." Krikorian said. "That's not something even the Mexican government is going to say."

Reach David Olson at 951-368-9462 or dolson@PE.com

There's not going to be any foreign parliament inside of the US!

W

Here in California it's a whole different battle than the rest of the US...We the voters, voted in prop 187 and it passed. That proposition would have cut off benefits to illegal aliens. A liberal judge tossed it out!

A parliment here sounds just like something they will try and probably accomplish.

The Parliament of FOOLS.