SUPPORT THE DREAM ACT. NOW
The plight of so many hardworking people is dire in many parts of the US. Their only crime: to be immigrant without papers. Take, for instance, the case of Benita Velez. I read about her in an article bu Lawrence Downes in the New York Times. Miss Velez has been in Texas since she was 8 years old, and is a great student and hard working person. Now she is 23 and is facing deportation. Should this king of nonsense be happening? By asking Washington to pass The DREAM ACT we will make sure that cases like Miss Velez will not happen again.
The NYT article stars by asking: "How will this country be a better place once we force Benita Veliz to leave it?"
Indeed. How?
The article continues: "Ms. Veliz is an illegal immigrant facing deportation, but she is nobody’s idea of a criminal, social undesirable or drain on the public till. She is a 23-year-old college graduate from San Antonio who works in a church office. She is smart, self-sufficient and hard-working. She is bursting with academic and professional ambitions — dreams that she has set aside because her paths to achieve them have all been closed. Immigration lawyers have told her that she has no hope of avoiding expulsion. She can only postpone it. Ms. Veliz is here illegally, but not by choice. She arrived from Mexico with her parents in 1993 on a tourist visa. She was 8. She had never lived in the United States before but has lived nowhere else since. By all detectable measures, she is an American, a Texan."
Please act now. On March 26, 2009, the "Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act" was introduced in both the House and the Senate. Opponents of the Act are already starting to flood Congress with messages and phone calls, unleashing their unrestrained fury. We can help by telling Washington to pass The Dream Act now!
The NCLA ( National Council of La Raza ) is sponsoring a call to action. Please visit the link below to participate. Write to Congress. Express your opinion.
POLITICO ON LATINO ISSUES AND GILLIBRAND
Politico.com posted an article on our new senator in Washington, Kirsten Gillibrand. A couple of days ago, after some meetings with the Latino leaders community, her conservative positions on immigration began to shift. Latino leaders are wondering if in fact, she can deliver on theses issues. State senator Peter Rivera says that her record on immigration "borders on xenophobia". It looks as if she has a lot to work on as far as the Latino community is concern. But she is not wasting any time: By now, she supports the DREAM Act, a five year temporary worker visa programm and then a path to residency, a call to Obama to stop raids and fix the inmigration mess. Is is like awakening to another reality for Ms Gillibrand. I wonder how well she will face this challenge. To read the article on Politico.
