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April 30, 2008
Immigration Marchers Return With Same Old Amnesty Message "Immigration activists and civil rights leaders are gearing up for Guatemalan President Lobbies for Amnesty During Bush Visit "Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, on his first visit to |
rallies and marches in cities across the nation, hoping to revive the stagnant immigration debate in time for the presidential election. Activists predict turnout for the more than 200 events planned Thursday from Seattle to Miami will be far less than in years past. But they say efforts demanding comprehensive immigration legislation _ including pathways to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. _ have extended beyond the streets," the AP reports. "With no single piece of legislation to rally around in 2007, numbers shrank and the message branched off. Marchers demanded an end to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, respect for the undocumented and worker unity, among other things. Efforts in Los Angeles quickly went sour when police cleared MacArthur Park by whacking protesters and journalists with batons and firing "non-lethal" projectiles."
Washington since taking office in January, said yesterday that his country's discredited police and justice systems need to be "reordered and disciplined" and that Guatemalan immigrants who are in the United States illegally deserve the same temporary legal protections that have been granted other Central Americans," the Washington Post reports. "In a meeting with Washington Post editors and reporters, the soft-spoken Colom, a center-left politician who defeated a conservative former army general, said the problem of illegal immigration needs to be addressed "in a multilateral way" involving regional governments, rather than through arrests and deportations. Last year, he said, about 7,500 Guatemalans were deported from the United States."