Home > Our Blog > Rally Kicks Off NY Effort for DREAM Act

Blog Post

Rally Kicks Off NY Effort for DREAM Act

Posted November 22, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Federal Immigration Policy

A rally this past Sunday at St. Brigid’s church in Bushwick, Brooklyn, kicked off the New York campaign to pass the DREAM Act during the ongoing lame duck session of Congress. A vote in the House of Representatives may come as soon as November 30.

Nearly 1,000 people attended the rally, which was headlined by presentations from three members of the House of Representatives: Nydia Velazquez, Anthony Weiner, and Chicago Representative Luis Gutierrez.

Velazquez talked about the violence unleashed against immigrants over the last two years, saying that failure to reform immigration has left Latinos vulnerable to vicious hate crimes. She urged passage of the DREAM Act as a “downpayment” towards comprehensive immigration reform.

Weiner told the audience that in a time of fiscal crisis, it made no sense to devote resources to mass deportations and to waste the talents of so many hardworking young immigrants.

Luis Gutierrez, whom Weiner introduced as the uncrowned king of immigration reform, said that the Obama administration needed to press the DREAM Act and halt deportations. He called for a moratorium on new deportations of people arrested in America’s cities, suburbs, and farms.

Gutierrez endorsed the “Stroke of the Pen” campaign being organized by the New York Immigration Coalition which insists that “with the stroke of a pen” the President can stop the raids and deportations that are tearing immigrant families and communities apart. He recalled his own marriage three decades ago in which he was joined to his wife by God, and said that it was immoral for the president to separate husbands and wives.

The rally was sponsored by a wide array of groups including the New York Immigration Coalition, the New York State Immigrant Action Fund, and Make the Road New York.

Tags : brooklyn, bushwick, dream act, make a road, nyic, nysiaf, rally

Permalink Comments