We Are Ready to Grade Congress on Commonsense Immigration Reform
By Eliseo Medina, International Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
CASA de Maryland, SEIU, NETWORK (Nuns on the Bus), NAACP, New York Immigration Coalition, held a news conference to call on Congress to act on commonsense immigration reform in 2013.
In the weeks after the historic November, 2012 election, in which Latino voters emerged as the new political power in this country, LULAC, SEIU and other groups that helped grow the Latino vote gathered to issue a challenge to Congress.
We called on Congress -- at this crucial moment in history -- to enact commonsense immigration reform in 2013. No excuses, no delaying tactics, no partisan semantics that have held us back for decades will be tolerated. These tactics have served no one well – not immigrants, businesses, our economy or our values as a nation of immigrants that values hard work, fairness and the entrepreneurial spirit.
If Congress does not act, our communities are ready to respond.
Our nation deserves, and voters from both parties and across ethnic groups overwhelmingly support, a 21st Century immigration system that is accountable and that includes a pathway to citizenship for immigrants now here without documents. Immigrants who work hard and aspire to become citizens should not be relegated to second-class status, but instead have a realistic mechanism to earn the rights and fulfill the duties that citizenship confers.
The new immigration system must build the strength and unity of working people; reduce the backlog of immigration cases; prioritize families; guarantee the same rights, obligations, and basic fairness for all workers, no matter where they come from; keep businesses competitive; and ensure internal and border law enforcement that focuses on preventing drug cartels and other bad actors from entering the U.S. or engaging in criminal activities.
Congress must not play deaf to voters’ demands or the needs of our economy. But just in case Congress is hard of hearing, we want to remind the House and Senate that our voices will become stronger and louder.
We will keep mobilizing the electorate to press Congress to deliver commonsense immigration solutions. Our civic engagement programs will continue to make citizens out of our residents and voters out of citizens because we are convinced that good public policy flows from an informed and engaged electorate that will not take “no” for an answer.
We will rate lawmakers and reward those who fight with us to create a roadmap to citizenship, and we will deliver a failing grade to those who remain idle or try to block America’s demand for common sense reform. Those grades will be delivered to the voters before the 2014 mid-term election.
Our organizations will work to ensure that the growth of the Latino vote endures and remains a vital part of our democracy.
And together, we will write another positive chapter of immigrants being welcomed into this great melting pot which is America.
The time is now for commonsense immigration reform.
Sign LULAC's "I Voted for Immigration Reform" Campaign at LULAC.org/CIR2013.