|
Advancing
Reform Legislation, Arizona Lawsuit Discussed
07/03/10
Washington D.C. - This
week a
diverse group of civil rights, labor, religious,
and immigrant community leaders met with President
Obama for a meaningful discussion on the effort to
win comprehensive immigration reform.
Jeunehaiti.com believes that is important to
upload the following statement from Ali
Noorani, Executive Director of the National
Immigration Forum and Chair of the Reform
Immigration FOR America:
“Today, we strongly requested for the
President to assert his leadership and escalate
his efforts to assure comprehensive immigration
reform legislation is enacted in 2010. From
our meeting, it is clear that the President is
committed to comprehensive immigration reform and
understands that Congressional action is needed
urgently.
We also strongly urged the administration to
assert the proper role of the federal government
in immigration enforcement by bringing up a legal
challenge to Arizona’s harsh immigration
law, “SB 1070“. The President
indicated that he had asked the Department of
Justice (DOJ) to review the Arizona law and that
it will be up to the DOJ as to whether and when
that law is challenged.
We applaud the President for doing the right
thing in requesting the Department of Justice to
review the law. The President is asserting the
federal government’s authority and we strongly
urge the Department of Justice to demonstrate
needed leadership by challenging the Arizona law.
The President knows that a federal challenge to
the Arizona law isn’t enough. Any legal action
will only raise the stakes for the President and
Congress to take real and meaningful action to
ensure finally, a federal solution to our broken
immigration system. Federal intervention in
Arizona is necessary to prevent the federal
immigration system from falling into complete
chaos. For the federal government to assert its
constitutional authority over immigration policy
in this instance, but to do nothing concrete
legislatively will only serve to further divide
the American people.
In our discussions today, we raised our
concerns about the urgently needed reforms to the
harsh and draconian detention and deportation
mechanisms that are tearing apart families and
communities under his watch. We will
continue to work tirelessly to ensure that the
President and his administration uphold
America’s finest values of transparency, due
process and family unity in the enforcement of
America’s immigration laws.
We will support the President’s efforts to
finally fix our nation’s broken immigration
system, as will the overwhelming majority of
Americans. Senate Democrats have stepped forward
with an outline for legislation. It is now up to
the Republican Party to work across the aisle and
address this urgent crisis affecting all Americans
|
