LOS ANGELES: Denial of immigrant rights 'has got to stop,' say interfaith activists
Episcopal News Service. June 30, 2010 [063010-03]
Pat McCaughan
As part of a national push to heighten awareness of the need for comprehensive immigration reform, a group of Christians, Jews and Muslims in Los Angeles declared June 29 a day of prayer and fasting and urged opposition to Arizona's immigration law, due to take effect in a month.
"I've fasted for eight days and our group fully intends to keep fasting until the end of July, when we will be traveling to Arizona to challenge this very un-American, inhumane law," Juan José Gutiérrez told about 50 people who gathered on the steps of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles' Wilshire district.
With passing traffic honking support, Gutiérrez, of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition, invoked "the spirit of the great Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. … (and) the sacrifices he made to achieve civil rights, full rights, for all people in America, which we still haven't gotten."
He and others called upon President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress to remember that "justice delayed is justice denied. And denying human rights—full rights for immigrants—has gone far enough. It has got to stop and we're making a stand today."
Similar events were planned the same day in New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Hawaii, as part of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition's Isaiah 58 Summer project. The June 6-July 31 project called for rolling vigils throughout the nation, beginning on the East coast and culminating with groups gathering in Arizona to protest implementation of SB1070, which aims to target and deport undocumented people.
Francisco Garcia, a lay leader at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, said he was fasting all day in support of "humane and just comprehensive immigration reform."
"As Episcopalians, this is central to our faith," said Garcia, a member of the program group on peace and justice of the Diocese of Los Angeles. "We've heard this at every level of our church. The national leadership, as well as our local diocesan bishop -- Jon Bruno has been very supportive – [have] called for immigration reform. This is part of my personal witness to that issue."
Garcia said he was certain that some members of All Saints—as well as many other churches—are undocumented. He described one parishioner who was detained by immigration officials and quickly deported to Honduras.
"Once he was in the detention center, it was very difficult to have any kind of contact with him. They have very quick internal proceedings -- there was very little we could do to stop the process," he recalled.
"He was sent back to Honduras where "there was no work, which was what drove him here in the first place. Literally, if he stayed there he would starve," Garcia said. "Now he's back and he's really living in the shadows. It's a very difficult situation, and he's just one person. There are millions with similar stories."
Rabbi Jonathan Klein, director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE, in Los Angeles, called upon the group to condemn the racial profiling inherent in Arizona's law and in "all of those places across the nation where similar legislation is being pondered, dangled in front of communities and scaring people and intimidating them away from doing what is right and just. We should be going the other way," he added, and welcoming everyone, as a nation of immigrants.
He noted that Jews traditionally fast June 29, recalling the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. He linked the breaching of those walls with the plight of the undocumented whose lives "are constantly being shaken and tormented and their homes broken into and becoming places of vilification rather than celebration."
Sara Jamshidi, director of the UCLA University Religious Conference, said she wanted to call attention to the struggles of students, unable to apply for scholarships because of their undocumented status.
"I want to heighten awareness about the Dream Act which would help undocumented students who have come here as minors to have an avenue to permanent residency," she said. "As it stands here there is no avenue to permanent residency if you are an undocumented person."
She described a brilliant student who managed, in spite of working three jobs to help his family, to graduate in the top 4 percent of his high school class and to be admitted to UCLA. There he studied microcell and developmental biology "and is a very successful and amazing student" but cannot finance his education because of his undocumented status.
Celina Lopez Maldonado, 29, recalled an arduous 20-year path involving multiple applications to finally become a legal resident.
"I just got my green card three years ago," said Maldonado, who moved to Southern California from Sonora, Mexico, with her parents at age six. When their visa expired, the family stayed and her grandmother, a U.S. citizen, petitioned for citizenship for Maldonado's father. That application died with her grandmother, Maldonado said.
Meanwhile, "my father worked all sorts of jobs, anything he could do, to earn money," recalled Maldonado, parish administrator at St. Cross by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Hermosa Beach in the Diocese of Los Angeles. "We lived all sorts of places."
Although she earned a scholarship to Campbell Hall, a prestigious Episcopal day school in North Hollywood, education, like so many other avenues, felt like "a dead end," Maldonado recalled.
"In high school I realized I could not apply to universities because I didn't have a social security number. I couldn't ask for grants and scholarships and I was a great student," she recalled tearfully.
Eventually, an older sister and her parents got their green cards. Maldonado, who married a U.S. citizen in 2002, said it took her several more years.
She described a complicated maze of forms, financial assessments (either for being in the country illegally or application fees), and medical tests that heighten the anguish of those who just want a chance at a better life, she said.
"It's a broken system," Maldonado said. "And there's all this animosity against us for being illegal. I didn't do anything wrong. I've never committed a crime, yet there are all these laws against us, even for the most basic needs, like housing. How can you take that away from someone? Forcing a landlord to be an immigration agent when it isn't their job to do that?
"This is a free country," she continued. "Not for many, for everyone. It's awful taking basic necessities from people. They're not living here for free. They work and they pay taxes. It's the United States, and it is the best country in the world but we still make mistakes. The system has been broken for a long, long time.
"There are so many wonderful illegals out there who mean well to this country, that are very patiently waiting for the process to work and to get a response from the government. We are not all terrorists or bad people and we deserve to live here because we have been here just as long as anybody else. I've been here for 22 years and I'm only 29. I paid my debt to the federal government and to society. When I got my citizenship I turned 18 again."
Iman Jihad Turk, religious director of the Islamic Center of Southern California, who also attended the June 29 gathering in Los Angeles, said the push for comprehensive immigration reform is a struggle "for the soul of America."
He and others fear Arizona's immigration law will inspire division and prejudice, he added. "We must stand together against it."