Rally held to protest illegal immigration
By Eric Schwartzberg



Thursday, March 26, 2009

MASON — A group of protestors voiced their opposition to illegal immigration outside a Justice For Immigrants convention held Thursday, March 26, in Mason.

The rally, held outside the Kings Island Resort & Conference Center, was organized by Dick Hohn, 69, of Montgomery, and Allen Baxter, 78, of West Chester Twp.

Baxter said the more than a dozen rally participants turned out to show their concern for illegal immigration and supporting effective immigration-law enforcement.

"The group that's inside is for human rights, and rightly so, but they're wanting the illegal immigrants who are here ... to be given amnesty and citizenship and that just encourages more illegals to come across when they're treated that way," Baxter said.

Immigration rights is "first and foremost about human dignity," according to Chris West, director of field operations for Justice For Immigrants, a group under the auspices of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"The church is saying the system is broken," West said. "It's not working for us currently and we'd like to see it work for America, for our economy, for our community for the immigrants themselves.

"I think that demonizing and scapegoating an entire group of people is not an effective way of solving a problem."

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