Can the “Gang Of 8” help you deliver the New Year’s gift so many undocumented immigrants are hoping for?
That is the question on the minds of many this holiday season, especially those Super Storm Sandy victims who are undocumented, “illegal” and scared and do not qualify for any government assistance.
Among them are migrants like Emilio Hector Gloria Fuentes, Eberto Silva and Miguel Alarcon Morales, who lost their jobs and possessions following Sandy and now must simply scrape by since they do not qualify for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, (FEMA.)
There is a desperate need now more than ever for freedom from the black hole that these immigrants have existed in for too long and with another year coming and your promise again to make immigration reform a reality, the time is now more than ever.
Now it’s up to you to use your power and the political capital you have with immigrant voters and the 62 percent of Americans who told Politico they support immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, to let Senators Dick Durbin, (D-IL), Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), Bob Menendez, (D-NJ), Michael Bennet, (D-CO), John McCain, (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), Mike Lee, (R-UT) and Sen.-elect Jeff Flake, (R-AZ), who make up the “Gang of 8,” know that they need to deliver a bi-partisan bill urgently for the 11 plus million people who need it.
As New Jersey DREAMer Juan Pablo Orjuela of the National Coordinating Committee for United We Dream’s Mid-Atlantic region recently summed it up: “We want a roadmap to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants across the country. We, along with our mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, deserve fair treatment and a chance to become citizens of the country we all call home.”
A comprehensive immigration reform bill must also include an end to senseless deportations and abuses, as United We Dream has said, as well as bring an end to excessive and costly immigration enforcement policies which separate families and divide communities, ensure safe, fair working conditions and equal protection under the law for all; a guest-worker program ensuring agricultural growers a steady source of laborers, a skilled labor program and an end to lengthy backlogs and processing times on immigration applications.
Now it’s up to you to use the grassroots and social media campaign machinery you have in place. Put it to work for immigration reform that can benefit people like Silva, Fuentes and Morales along with 11 plus million others who continue to work and contribute as good, moral citizens to the United States of America but suffer in silence. They need to be free from the yoke of fear and the burden that they have been carrying around like albatrosses for too long. 2013 is the year to finally let freedom reign for the undocumented!
Respectfully,
The writer is founder of NewsAmericasNow, CaribPR Wire and Hard Beat Communications.
