Reform Immigration For America Summit

Posts Tagged ‘Reform Immigration for America Summit’

Reform Immigration for America Town Hall : Choreography and Criticisms

3:47 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Politics| Washington DC · 2 Comments

4 Jun 2009

This morning at the Reform Immigration for America Summit, the attention was focused on Capital Hill and pumping up the activists for legislative visits via a National Town Hall Meeting on Immigrant Reform, held at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation.

The word that popped into my head as the packed church was lead in the “Si Se Puede” multiple language chant practice was “choreography”. While the meeting featured a few grassroots, “real” people, the majority of the speakers were people we all have heard from already, including politicians. People in the audience did not participate, beyond chanting on cue. One of the included chants was “Workable Solutions” and there was something about this chant that didn’t sit well with me. Workable meaning we stop pushing for inclusion of so-called divisive issues like detention reform, inclusion of glbt familias, and the DREAM Act?

I honestly missed alot of the first half of the Town Hall since I was entertaining a toddler. Pero here is what I was able to catch.

Dia Dos of Reform Immigration For America Summit Jumps Off

6:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Politics| Washington DC · 2 Comments

4 Jun 2009

000_0006 This is how we roll at the Reform Immigration for America Summit. These Summits are often exhausting, especially when there are so many people to speak to (some that you only see in person once a year) and so much work to be done and stories and angles to cover. Add to the mix that I’m running with a two year old and it makes it even more exhausting. Pero as amigo Kyle said to me yesterday, you run on adrenaline.

Today should be a really interesting day. There is a Town Hall Meeting on Immigration Reform that will feature some of the top legislative supporters of immigration reform. It will be interesting to see what the set up is at the Town Hall as sometimes these events aren’t very “towny” in that participation is limited. And as Kyle pointed out in a post yesterday from the Summit, there remain many questions that need to be asked.

For instance, why is it that traditional notions of comprehensive immigration reform include reuniting heterosexual married couples, while same-sex binational couples are left out in the cold. Another important issue is the way Reform Immigration For America will treat migrant youth. Will migrant youth be treated as leaders in the push for the DREAM Act? Or, will they be coopted or ostracized for pushing the DREAM Act independent of the migration reform?

Migrant Detention Under The Obama Administration : Will RI4A Address This?

3 Jun 2009

So here I am at the Reform Immigration for America Summit in DC and the opening luncheon inside the Victory Tent was filled with people chanting Si Se Puede/Yes we Can! The message from all the speakers was clear, yes there is alot of work to do but that ultimately victory will be ours. Pero what does victory look like?

Maria Socorro Pesqueira, from Mujeres Latinas in Accion de Chicago spoke of her own personal experiences coming from an immigrant family and looked at the immigrant woman’s experience specifically. She gave examples of immigrant women whose families were fragmented by an enforcement first immigration agenda, an agenda that according to Socorro Pesqueira, left one child in the streets calling our for her detained and eventually deported father. As a mother, who is here with my youngest, this brought me to tears and even writing about it now makes my eyes well up.

The underlying assumption though, or my perception of it from the RI4A Summit and from the immigrant reform movement in general is that things are different now with Obama in the White House. Are they really?

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Posts Tagged ‘Reform Immigration for America Summit’

Reform Immigration for America Town Hall : Choreography and Criticisms

Dia Dos of Reform Immigration For America Summit Jumps Off

Migrant Detention Under The Obama Administration : Will RI4A Address This?

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