Civil Rights leaders call for justice for families of undocumented workers
by Joe Narkin

(Plain Press, April 2008) Local and national civil rights leaders called solidarity in action among Latino, African-American, and other ethnic communities critical to the passage of a pending congressional proposal to grant temporary, renewable 5-year visas to people living and working in the United States as undocumented immigrants who are parents to an estimated 5 million minor children who are U.S. citizens. This call for justice in immigration reform came at a community dialogue, with 30 local residents in attendance, on February 28th at Iglesia Hispana del Nazareno Nueva Luz on W. 89th and Willard. The Latina Action Committee of Ohio sponsored the dialogue.

Stanley Miller, Executive Director of the Cleveland Chapter of the NAACP, stated in his opening address that, in order to assure justice and family unity for undocumented workers and their citizen children, it is essential to bring together “tolerant people to bring out the best in each other, rather that destroy each other.”

In issuing a call for cooperative action in seeking just immigration reform, Miller cited the critical role that white citizens, particularly Jewish Americans, played in the creation of the NAACP in 1909 and the success of the 20th century civil rights movement. He said it was a setback for civil rights and social unity when, under the influence of the Black Power movement in 1965, Jewish supporters “were told to step aside, that they were not needed.” Subsequent speakers at the forum reinforced Miller’s commitment to solidarity in addressing the issue of undocumented workers.

Emma Lozano, Executive Director of Centro Sin Fronteras in Chicago, spoke of her brother, Rudy Lozano, who, as a field organizer for the old International Ladies Garment Workers Union, was highly influential in uniting Chicago’s Puerto Rican and Mexican communities behind the mayoral candidacy of Harold Washington, who became the first and only African-American mayor of Chicago. Mayor Washington’s first executive order upon taking office in 1983 declared that the City of Chicago would not provide assistance to U.S. authorities in enforcing immigration laws. The power of this new coalition, Lozano believes, led to the cold-blooded murder of Rudy in his home on June 8, 1983.

Rev. Walter Coleman, Pastor of the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, expressed the belief that, as a basic civil rights issue, “the way that the African-American community deals with this issue determines the soul of the African-American community.”

Lozano and Coleman encouraged strong action in support of a new legislative initiative sponsored by members of the U.S. Congressional Hispanic Caucus that would allow undocumented workers with children who are U.S. citizens to stay together by giving them temporary legal status and protect them from raids, firings, arrests, deportations, and other enforcement actions.  

In 2007, the Hispanic Congressional Caucus blocked a congressional measure that sought to issue an increased number of new temporary visas for seasonal and skilled workers because it did not provide legal protections for undocumented immigrants already working in the United States. The new proposal submitted by the Caucus offers a counterproposal that will provide broader protections for undocumented workers while meeting a strong economic need for immigrant labor in the United States. Both Lozano and Coleman referred to the proposed legislation as a temporary solution to “stop the terror” against undocumented workers and provide “five years of peace” as a preliminary step in the creation of a permanent, fair, equitable, and family-friendly immigration policy.

In 2006, Lozano and Coleman took the lead in providing church sanctuary for Elvira Arellano, and her 7-year old son, Saul. Arellano, who illegally crossed into the United States from Mexico in 1997, faced arrest and deportation following her firing as a cleaning person at O’Hare International Airport for using a false Social Security number under an employer-initiated review mandated by the U.S. Homeland Security Act.  The firing and subsequent governmental action against Arellano represented an intentional misuse of an act passed by Congress for the sole purpose of identifying terrorist activity in the United States, said Lozano and Coleman. The Arellano case resulted in widespread international press coverage and, according to Lozano, the “largest mass mobilization in U.S. history to keep families together.”

Although legal scholars agree that there are no provisions for church sanctuary under U.S. law, government authorities made no attempt to enter the Adalberto United Methodist Church and arrest Arellano during her year in residency, despite threats to do so.

Arellano voluntarily left her sanctuary at Adalberto Church to travel to Los Angeles on August 15, 2007 in order to challenge Democratic leadership to stop the separation of the families of undocumented families and to speak in churches. In L.A., she was arrested by heavily armed immigration officials and was subsequently deported, accompanied by her son, to Mexico. Since her deportation, Arellano continues to be a vocal supporter, through correspondence to the United States and speeches in Mexico, for U.S. immigration reform and she has spearheaded the development of sanctuaries in Mexico to serve immigrants recently deported from the U.S. and for migrants traveling to the U.S.A. through Mexico from Central and South America. Her sanctuary experience in Chicago has inspired the creation of other church sanctuaries throughout the United States, most notably in Los Angeles.

According to Lozano, under NAFTA the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico “formed an agreement that forced people to cross borders because of an economic crisis that does not allow their families to survive.” These people are “heroes, not criminals” and women such as Elvira Arellano “will walk through fire and face the dragon to protect their children,” said Lozano.

The anti-immigration sentiment evident in current federal laws and policies have begun to filter down to local and state levels throughout the nation, said Lozano. An example is Waukegan, Illinois, where the local police department has been using routine traffic stops as an opportunity to initiate the deportation process against illegal immigrants. Lozano views the State of Arizona as a “laboratory of racism” due to the creation of local border militias, as well as efforts to legally refuse a birth certificate to any child born to illegal immigrants and to make it illegal for a citizen to marry an illegal non-citizen in Arizona.

Emma Lozano sees the current anti-immigrant sentiment as a “racist campaign of hate, particularly against the Mexican people” that should be of special concern for all Latinos and other “brown and black people.” Lozano said that the government is “not building a wall on the northern border at Canada, but along the southern border at Mexico.” Rev. Coleman called the current administration’s plans to deport 12,000 to 13,000 undocumented immigrants on an annual basis a “brutal, visible, and public spectacle” that is designed to produce “disempowerment and intimidation” of minority people and their supporters.

 “We are not defending the system of undocumented labor; we hate the system of undocumented labor,” said Coleman, adding that, “If you want to protect the border, you do not build a wall, you create fair trade.” Since the passage of the NAFTA Trade Agreement, 13 million jobs have been lost in agricultural areas of Mexico as the U.S. dumped corn and other agricultural products into Mexico and controlled prices, stated Coleman, with similar effects on agricultural economies throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.  

Coleman believes that it is easier to address the issue of undocumented workers through churches committed to social justice “than anywhere else,” noting that there are 16,000 Latino churches in the United States and that an estimated 20% of the pastors and 40% of the congregation of Latino churches are undocumented immigrants.

Dr. Felix Muniz, Pastor of the Iglesia Hispana del Nazareno Nueva Luz in Cleveland, concluded the community dialogue by declaring that the current anti-immigrant climate is proof that the United States “is the promised land to some, but not to others” and represents a “call for courageous action on the part of the church.”  Nueva Luz Church and the Latin Action Committee in Cleveland will be organizing local participation in a nationwide Rainbow Rally in support of justice for undocumented workers and their families on May 1st.  Additional information may be obtained by calling Dr. Muniz at (216) 651-1128.

(see related photos here)

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