IL REP. GUTIERREZ' BILL on immigration reform backed by Mass. business & other officials

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Press release from Mass. Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), Dec. 15, 2009:

BOSTON —Reflecting the diversity of our immigrant nation, a broad Massachusetts coalition of faith, labor and community leaders voiced their support for the immigration reform bill that Illinois Representative Luis Gutierrez introduces in the U.S. House of Representatives at noon today.

The bill marks the first major legislative action honoring President Obama’s promise to fix our broken immigration system, and it achieves the goal of starting the process within the president’s first year in office.

“We support Rep. Gutierrez’s attempt to create a fair, common sense and economically-minded solution to the nation’s immigration woes,” said Corinn Williams, executive director of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts, located in New Bedford. “The Gutierrez bill would offer a rigorous path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants living in a shadow economy, create sensible but strict workplace provisions to protect employees and employers alike, and tie future immigration to economic need. These reforms are crucial to provide relief to families, communities, and our struggling American economy.”

Appropriately, Rep. Gutierrez’s bill is called the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act, or CIR A.S.A.P.  The Illinois representative releases the bill with backing by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“It’s crucial that the Hispanic representatives and other minority voices be heard in this debate first,” said Patricia Sobalvarro, executive director of Agencia Alpha in Boston. “Across the country, it is Latino families that are most affected by our broken immigration system. But we do this as part of a broad coalition because the broken system ultimately affects us all.”

Carline Desire, executive director of the Association of Haitian Women, in Boston, reiterated this sentiment. “Gutierrez and his allies are reminding the White House and Congressional leaders of the expectation among all communities of color that immigration reform will be achieved by the current Congress,” she said. “And this is also a way to guarantee that our representatives will have a major voice in determining final legislation.”  

Others stress that the Gutierrez bill also make sense for working families of every stripe. “Fixing our immigration system is the first step to fixing our economy,” said Rocio Saenz, president of Service Employees International Union 615, headquartered in Boston. “Unless Congress acts, workers will continue to be pitted against each other by unscrupulous employers who pay lower wages, avoid taxes and violate labor law.”

In the end, the largest element uniting this plurality of voices in support of CIR-A.S.A.P was the simple promise of fairness. It is the same ideal that Americans have always looked to in their efforts to transcend creed and color.

“As the oldest interfaith network in Massachusetts -- a Commonwealth founded by immigrants and enriched each day by immigrants among us -- we call on Congress to live up to our national creed and to enact just, humane, and pragmatic solutions to our broken immigration system," said Alexander Levering Kern, executive director of Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries (CMM) in greater Boston. "Each of our faiths call us to welcome the stranger, the refugee, the widow and orphan and to extend God's promise of justice and abundance to all people. We call on legislators to act now in the interest of our common security and prosperity, and with an eye to the America we might become."