October is the time that the immigration reform movement is escalating the push for the House of Representatives to pass immigration reform. On Saturday, October 5, there will be more than ninety local rallies around the country.
Locally there will be a rally at 12 noon beginning at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. At 2 PM there will be a march over the Brooklyn Bridge.
A rally on Long Island will take place as well, beginning in Ross Park, in Brentwood, at 12pm, and it will be followed immediately by a rally and press conference.
On October 8 there will be a major rally in Washington that is expected to draw more than 30,000 people. It will include a civil disobedience action. Later in October there will be a series of rallies and other actions to serve notice on the Tea Party Congressmen that immigrants’ rights cannot be put on the backburner.
We all know that Congress has become dysfunctional as a small number of House conservatives seem to have taken over the legislative process. The point of the protest movement that we are developing is to confront John Boehner and the rest of the House leadership with the reality that we will not accept the sidetracking of reform. We also want to make sure that immigrant rights supporters keep this issue in front of Latino and Asian American voters who will be going to the polls to elect a new Congress next year.
We have shown that we will not back away from immigration reform even when the pundits have said it is dead. We believe that reform can still pass this year, and if it does not we will renew the struggle in January.
