Immigrant Voices Heard at Obama's Second Town Hall Meeting
By Kenneth Kim, New America Media
Posted on March 24, 2009, Printed on March 25, 2009
Alternet.Org
Fearing immigration reform was not on his agenda, dozens of immigrant rights activists Thursday participated in a rally outside the public school, as President Barack Obama held the second of two town hall meetings during his two-day trip to Southern California.
While those who were lucky enough to secure tickets to the event waited patiently in line to enter the gymnasium at Miguel Contreras Learning Center, about 200 people, mostly Hispanics, lined up on Third Avenue at Lucas Street, chanting and waving signs and banners that read "Obama Count Us Too!" "Legalization, Now," and "We Are Not Criminals."
The protesters at the rally, organized by Union Del Barrio and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), were demanding that the president issue an executive order to end Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and focus his efforts on formulating a plan to legalize the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country.
Kevin Prada, 12, who was born in the United States, spoke at the rally about his loneliness and the hardship he has had to endure since his father's deportation in 2007. Vicky Marquez talked about the emotional anguish she has been suffering for the last 13 years because she has not been able to see her children, living in her native El Salvador.
With Obama's focus being on pulling the country out of the recession, ending the Iraq war and reforming health care, many immigrant rights activists worry that the new administration would be less likely to come up with a proposal any time soon to overhaul immigration policies, unless they put pressure on him.
"It isn't a protest," asserted Nativo Lopez, state and national president of the Mexican-American Political Association. "It's a welcoming, and to remind him we're still here."
As the immigrants rights activists had predicted, during the more than an hour-long town hall event, Obama didn't make any reference to the thorny issue of immigration.
http://www.alternet.org/story/133078/
