200,000 March for Immigration Reform in Washington D.C.

“The message was clear: fix our broken immigration system, stop the deportations that split up families, and allow immigrants to come to the US legally and to earn legal status.”

On Sunday March 21, 2010, tens of thousands of immigrants and activists rallied calling for legislation this year to give legal status to millions of irregular immigrants and seeking to pressure President Obama. Demonstrators filled five lengthy blocks of the Washington Mall, down the hill from the Capitol.

After an immigration overhaul measure was defeated in Congress in 2007, the pace of enforcement raids picked up and many immigrants, especially those without legal status, preferred to lay low. But immigrant advocates decided to gamble by calling the march, to give a show of force that might impress Mr. Obama and also to vent the frustration of many immigrants who have taken to heart his repeated promises that he would move an immigration bill in Congress by early this year. Mr. Obama addressed the crowd via a videotaped message displayed on huge screens, promising to keep working on the issue but avoiding a specific time frame. “I have always pledged to be your partner as we work to fix our broken immigration system, and that’s a commitment that I reaffirm today,” Mr. Obama said. Under the Obama administration, reality has been hard for immigrants with over 387,000 immigrants deported.

The event was organized by the Reform Immigration for America campaign, with considerable organizational and logistical support from its national, state, and local partners, not the least of which was the Center for Community Change whose staff was the backbone of the operation that brought nearly 1,000 buses to DC and credentialed more than 300 journalists.

The urgency was echoed by church leaders who spoke, including Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of  Los Angeles, and Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, the leader of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the largest organization of Latino evangelical churches.

SIMN was present at the rally together with a number of Scalabrinian Missionaries and many lay people from Scalabrinian parishes. As the debate for immigration reform will come back to the center of US political arena, we are called to be involved in the debate with the strength that comes from a century of involvement with the people on the move.