Prioritizing Immigration Reform: Activists Demand If Biden Comes to the White House

They consider it probable to remove Trump from the presidency and seek that a hypothetical Democratic government “does not repeat mistakes”

Pro-immigrant activists who are confident that the White House could have a new tenant after the elections have begun to mobilize so that a possible Democratic government “does not repeat mistakes” and places immigration reform high on its agenda.

We are Democrats, we have been working hard for change in the White House and we believe that it is quite likely that we will succeed in evicting Donald Trump ” after the elections on November 3, Juan José Gutiérrez, director of the Rights Coalition, told Efe Plenary sessions of the Los Angeles Immigrants .

According to this activist, a government headed by Joe Biden could put “in the first place of the priorities” a reform that offers a path to citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants .

The same was the opinion of the Mexican Elvira Arellano, an activist in Chicago of the United Family movement and Right 2 Family, for whom immigration reform has only appeared in the campaign speeches of Democratic candidates, but not on the political agenda .

“We have to be a priority, ” he told Efe. “On the first day of a new Democratic administration, an executive order has to be passed to stop deportations and family separation while a definitive legal status for all is legislated in Congress,” he said.

Gutiérrez, Arellano and other activists gathered under the “I want my green card” coalition have organized rallies and car caravans in various states to pressure presidential candidates.

The first of them was held this Sunday in Los Angeles, with participants from all over Southern California.

The date chosen is the 26th anniversary of the movement against Proposition 187 of 1994, which sought to prevent undocumented immigrants from having access to health and education in California.

A march and a caravan started from the Municipality behind a gigantic banner with the slogan “Full rights for immigrants.”

“In 2008 we put all the meat on the grill supporting Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who promised us immigration reform that never materialized , despite having a majority in Congress,” said Gutiérrez, for whom a new Democratic administration does not You can afford to make that “mistake” again.

“That they do not leave us with another Sunday seven after the elections,” he asked.

The campaign will continue on Monday in Chicago, where there will be a protest in the Plaza Tenochtitlán, in the Hispanic neighborhood of Pilsen, after which similar events are planned in the coming days in cities such as Arizona, Texas, New York and Washington.

“Our alliance is growing. We cannot stand idly by, “said Arellano, who was in Los Angeles recently to announce the mobilizations.

The activist of Mexican origin became the standard bearer of the fight for the undocumented, after being arrested in 2006 with false documents and resisting the deportation order for a year while sheltering in a Chicago church.

After leaving the shelter in 2007, she traveled to Los Angeles, where she was detained and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Seven years later, he managed to return to the United States on a humanitarian visa and now awaits the result of his asylum request.

“I am an essential worker, I deserve to live with permanent residence in this country,” said Arellano, who has two children, one of them a citizen who will vote for the first time on November 3.

In the Chicago event, the Democratic Congressman from Illinois Bobby Rush will participate to announce the presentation on Tuesday in Congress of a bill in favor of the “dreamers” and their parents , called “American Right 2 Family.”

In addition to protecting young people who have arrived in the country before the age of 16 from deportation, which is what Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) allows, and granting them work permits, the project proposes benefits to their parents and the return to the country of the “dreamers “, as the beneficiaries of the federal program are known, who have been deported.

Obama also created a Deferred Action in 2014 for some five million parents of citizen and permanent resident children , but the measure was stopped by a court in Texas and never managed to be implemented.