Speakers seek halt in deportations

REFORM: Activists, politicians, others take part in bipartisan rally.

VAN NUYS - Immigration activists, officeholders and Christian leaders rallied at a San Fernando Valley church on Saturday, renewing angry calls for President Barack Obama to order a halt of deportations they say shatter the families of legal U.S. residents.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, and immigration-reform proponent Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., were among the speakers at La Iglesia en la Camino (The Church on the Way) in what was billed as a bipartisan town-hall meeting.

"When communities are terrorized by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel ... the system just isn't working, and we need to change it now," Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez then told the audience this was a passage from a 2008 Obama campaign speech, and charged Obama has failed to fulfill his promise to help.

Gutierrez, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus Immigration Task Force, said the administration's strategy of stepping up deportations to try to win over opponents of immigrant-rights expansions has failed.

About 400 people attended the event put on by the church and Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, fewer than organizers expected.

Robert Gittelson, a founder of the conservative group, said the small attendance

reflected the "despair" felt by many Latinos about the prospects for immigrant-rights expansion in the current Congress.

Conducted in English and Spanish, the event featured testimonials from three families that organizers said are being hurt by the deportations of otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants.

Andrea Sosa, 19, a student at California State University, Northridge, who said she didn't learn she was undocumented until she was in high school, told the crowd her parents were deported to Colombia last year, and she and her 16- and 7-year-old sisters fear they will face deportation.

U.S.-born Randy Meza, 13, whose parents face deportation to Mexico after more than 20 years in California, said his "life would be ruined" if he is forced to leave his home country.

Concepcion Flores spoke of caring for four grandchildren after their mother was deported to El Salvador and murdered there by gangsters.

Villaraigosa said it's important to involve evangelical leaders to present the immigration-reform campaign as more than a liberal cause and "(change) the tone and tenor of the debate."

Added Rev. Jim Tolle, pastor of La Iglesia en el Camino: "This is not just a political issue. This is not just an economic issue. We believe this is a moral and spiritual issue."

Berman, a co-sponsor of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act legislation that would extend legal residency for immigrant college students, said he remains optimistic that so-called reforms will get through Congress.

In an interview, Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said halting deportations would help about 8 million people.

Source: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_18164081?source=rss

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