Hundreds of thousands of people have been protesting

Hundreds of thousands of people have been protesting all over the country the last few days because they value the integrity of the family. These people are demonstrating to protest an anti-immigrant bill would decimate the fabric of their family unity by separating and disintegrating families. The majority of those demonstrators were Hispanics from all over the Americas including Mexico, South and Central America. According to the 2000 US Census, Hispanics comprise approximately 12.6% of the total US population. Approximately 66% of Hispanics reported in the Census are of Mexican descent.

The US Congress is considering passing a law that would make undocumented immigrants felons and would relegate them to become a permanent underclass of low-wage conditional workers subject to exploitation and abuses. It would allow for the creation of a temporary worker program of second-class transient workers, who are not guaranteed meaningful enforcement of working or civil rights. These workers would have little opportunity to develop their human potentials or to integrate into society. Finally, this law would make all people who work with undocumented immigrants such as human rights advocates, clergy, health care workers, teachers and labor leaders, criminals as they too would be considered felons.

Many undocumented immigrants leave their countries in the first place because their governments have implemented laws and policies that almost always benefit the rich and powerful oligarchs and multinational companies. These policies are implemented in many countries throughout the world because of the United States' insatiable imperialist avarice to conquer the free world through economic and military might. These policies have resulted in widespread poverty, irreparable environmental degradation and escalating violence and suffering of many members of the human race. That is why many immigrants leave their countries to come to Norte America - to escape the suffering and poverty and - to seek out a better life for themselves and their families. Is that such a terrible crime?

You see, the family is the motivating factor here. The majority of Hispanics families have very deep family ties. Their families are tightly knit and graciously inter-connected. Hispanic families share the trials and tribulations of life and death much as community shares water. The concept of living and interacting with their extended families is part of their collective soul. Thus you have communities of families within their larger community, united through tradition, yet unique in their own social-cultural backgrounds. That is why millions of Hispanic people are out in the streets, because they must defend their dignity as human beings and their right to maintain their family unity.

The anti-immigration law that Congress is currently seeking to promulgate would place undocumented immigrants in low-wage jobs essential to the US capitalist economy while marginalized them from their local communities. These workers would also be denied an opportunity to realize their potentials other than low-wage labor and to integrate into local communities and the larger society. The proposed law fails to address the causes of migration, which is increasing all over the world with economic globalization and social disruptions, but rather seeks to punish people who have been driven from their homelands by poverty and social upheaval in order to fill low-wage essential jobs in our economy in order to support their families and provide opportunities for their children.

As my dear friend Robert said, “illegal immigration is a complex issue”. Punitive laws will not remedy the situation, but only foster increased anger and division. I pray and hope that our representatives in Congress will reconsider this legislation as it is currently drafted. It is a not only a dispassionate blow to the basic dignity that all humans have a right to, but cuts deeps into the spirit of the Hispanic peoples, who vehemently practice traditional family values and unity. In closing, I’d like to quote longtime immigrant rights activist, Javier Rodriguez who stated in last Saturday’s march, “You know, let me say this, Senator -- your senator -- Hillary Clinton mentioned something that was poignant, and that is that Sensenbrenner and the Republicans, if this law passes, they're going to arrest Jesus. Well, in our case, we're going to, not that we're going to -- we think the parallel is the following. If this bill passes, if this bill becomes law, any of those clauses become law; in the conciliation period, they're going to arrest la Virgen de Guadalupe, the Virgin of Guadalupe”.

This only shows that we’re in a pretty sad state of affairs when one of our government’s laws compel us to arrest one of the most venerated representatives of Divine Mother energy on the planet, that is - la Virgen de Guadalupe.

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