The Brooklyn, NY represented visited with the Rudy Lopez, Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, Patrick Carolan, Mary Rein, David Huerta, Denise Solis, Maria Trujillo, Austin Thompson, Rabbi Steve Gutow, Reverend Anthony Suarez, John Kerr, Tom Snyder, Diana Bui and Salvador Zamora who are fasting in protest of the failure by Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to allow a vote on immigration reform.
The fasters includes representatives of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Service Employees International Union, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, the AFL-CIO, the Franciscan Action Network, and members of the clergy.
“These men and women have demonstrated by their sacrifice a moral commitment to fairness for the eleven million Americans who currently lack legal status in the United States,” said Congresswoman Clarke. “The system of immigration we have today threatens families and children in every community with deportation – in effect, the separation of parents from their children and brothers from their sisters. We cannot maintain a system that does not represent our shared values, our belief that stable families are the foundation of society.”
In July, the Senate passed an immigration reform bill that would allow most of undocumented immigrants to earn a path to legalization but Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner has refused to bring the Senate bill to the House floor for a vote.
He says his Caucus will only support individual bills on the hot button issue.
Boehner this week announced Rebecca Tallent, former director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center will join the office as assistant to the Speaker for Policy handling immigration issues. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is charged with crafting actual legislation and claims there has been some reconsideration in GOP ranks as to the desirability of at least passing a House version of immigration reform.
