By Marcelo Ballvé, New America Media
Prominent immigrant advocates launched their most sharply worded public
critique yet of the Obama administration’s immigration policy.
Advocates who spoke at a press conference Monday in Washington, D.C.
angrily pointed to statistics that showed a significant acceleration in
immigration enforcement over President Bush’s last year, with over
387,000 immigrants deported since Obama’s inauguration.
As a result, livelihoods were lost, local economies affected, and families split apart, the advocates said.
“These are the same enforcement practices that we marched against
during the Bush administration,” said Angelica Salas, director of the
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
On any given day, Salas added, over 32,000 immigrants are under
detention in jails and prisons around the country awaiting deportation.
The advocates said they felt betrayed by an Obama administration that
promised to take their concerns into account and then became more
aggressive than its predecessor in cracking down on immigrants.
Brent Wilkes, executive national director of the League of United Latin
American Citizens, or LULAC, a Latino civil rights group, recalled
candidate Barack Obama’s promise at a LULAC event to reform the
country’s immigration laws in his first year in office.
Wilkes said many LULAC members believed this promise, which hasn’t yet been fulfilled.
“But one thing they never believed in their wildest dreams is that
President Obama would have a record like this, where he surpassed the
Bush administration in deportations,” Wilkes said. “It is
unconscionable to have over 387,000 deported in the first year of an
Obama presidency, and our community is angry.”
A video of the event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. is available for streaming at C-Span 2 . The advocates called on President Obama and Congress to halt deportations until the system gets an overhaul.
The press conference came on the same day President Obama was scheduled
to meet with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
in an effort to nudge immigration legislation forward.
One of the presenters today was a schoolgirl named Beatriz whose family
was targeted by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inquiry. She
tearfully described how federal agents trailed her in order to
investigate her parents.
Wilkes said roughly 5.5 million U.S. citizen children nationwide have
at least one parent who is an unauthorized immigrant and that
deportations inevitably lead to broken households.
“This administration seems proud to out-enforce the Bush
administration,” added Pramila Jayapal, executive director of the
Seattle-based OneAmerica group.
The advocates also contended that the immigration audits or “paper
raids” that have replaced workplace raids under Obama are just as
damaging to immigrant communities and the businesses that depend on
them.
The advocates, part of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement coalition,
plan to join other advocacy coalitions as well as labor and faith
groups in a pro-immigration march on Washington, D.C. March 21.
(Photo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement website.)