By JULIANNE DEFILIPPIS
Cronkite News Service
WASHINGTON – Phoenix resident Gerardo Torres said immigrants have “ideas that are really going to help” communities affected by immigration policies – if only President Barack Obama would ask.
Torres was one of a number of protesters outside the White House Monday urging the president to include immigrant voices at the table during any policy meetings, arguing that there should be “no negotiation without representation.”
Torres, an undocumented immigrant who has lived in Phoenix for more than 20 years, said there are immigrants here illegally who are “willing and able to be at the table,” but that so far none have been included.
“In all these meetings that they have been having at the White House about the immigration issues and all that, the undocumented people haven’t been invited to the table,” Torres said. “We wanted to be invited, we wanted to be involved.”
The protest was organized by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as part of its “Not One More” campaign, which aims to end deportations and what it calls unjust immigration laws.
The protest brought out about a dozen representatives from different groups who chanted and waved signs for less than an hour, drawing the occasional quizzical look from passing tourists and workers on lunch breaks.
“The main thing we want right now is to stop the deportations of the people,” Torres said. Once that has been accomplished, they can start talking about the next steps toward “better immigration reform,” he said.
The protest was not the group’s only action Monday – protesters also took their message earlier in the day to other advocacy groups that have been included in meetings on immigration policy.
Those visits – to the National Immigration Forum, the Center for American Progress and other organizations – asked those groups to stand with undocumented immigrants and boycott the meetings until those affected by the policies are included as well, one protester said through a megaphone.
“No more meetings about us, without us,” the protesters chanted. “Nobody represents us, we represent ourselves.”
The protesters included undocumented individuals from a variety of groups around the country, said Jerssay Arredondo, an undocumented immigrant who has lived in Arizona for most of his life. They came to “call out Obama and these organizations that are having these meetings,” he said.
“Obama is holding these secret meetings with these groups that claim to represent us, but there is no one at the table that is directly affected,” he said.
Arredondo said including undocumented immigrants at the table would show “what immigration looks like to us.”
“Obama, you need these people, you need to hear them out because these are the ones that are affected and these are the ones you are going to be able to help,” he said.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2014.
I’ll bet you really like kicking hornets’ nests, don’t you, Henry? 😉
Illegals have no rights.
I have respect for the opinions of all immigrants…who came through the front door legally. This is insane. This is like saying that if I broke into your house that you should sit down and negotiate with me what I can steal from you or how many times I can have my way with your daughter.
Illegal aliens are almost a “protected class” of people in this country. Once they get passed the Border Patrol, they can openly state they broke the law in front The White House and have no fear of being arrested.
It would be like I went outside Costco, with a Blue Ray player stole, and openly admit to me breaking the law. Then the police do not do anything about it.
The Border Patrol’s headquarter’s is about a block away from the White House. There are probably a few hundred in the Reagan Building. Let them do their job. This is insane this is allowed and even condoned by many of our politicians.
Sure they want to debate after they have broken our laws. I think not. The only debate I want to see is how fast we can depot them or force them to self deport. King obomanation has no say in this any decree he makes can be undecreed. You need to speak to the American people and they have spoken, GO HOME!!!!
I am a legal immigrant and a naturalized citizen. The illegals have no rights under the law. This is a line of B.S. designed to legitimize what are essentially a bunch of criminals.
Illegals want a voice ? Fine. Go back to your country, get your papers in order and then we will give you the opportunity to voice your opinion.
The point is …do we want an Hispanic America? With their birthrate and add their crime rate you have a disaster. Think I am wrong. See who gets arrested in Tucson. A rate way, way beyond their percentage here in Tucson.
Send the peons home.
So Arizona has another asshole “Gerardo Torres ” who thinks all law breakers”Illegal aliens” should have a special right and fuck the Americans here living on the street with no jobs thanks to the Illegal aliens. If Gerardo Torres and the rest of these pricks want to pony up there money and sponsor all the Illegal aliens go for it. I’m tired of all my hard earned money being taxed for stupidly.
I can tell you “what immigration looks like to us”. It looks like the crime section of the Arizona Daily Star, gangs in Tucson, crowded schools, kids with low test scores, kids and parents who don’t care if they go to college, high birth rates, crime way beyond their population percentage in Tucson, TUSD with 64% Hispanic kids and a flight of everyone else to Vail District and other districts as well as private and Charter schools. Because they just don’t want to go to school with you! They don’t respect your values. Isn’t it wonderful that they don’t even want to share their schools with you.
It looks like an Hispanic America that will lead us to a third world status cesspool country.
If the illegals were English speaking educated Indian computer engineers or South Korean steel workers or German or Irish skilled workers there would not be a problem. Between the business owners who need cheap slave labor and the Progressives Liberals who just can’t stop drooling over having a multi-cultural society with all of them as card carrying Democrats we are doomed.
It;s not a racist issue, we just don’t want criminal peons here. May may not be that way when they come but they will after one or two generations. Read the Arizona Daily Star this morning or any morning. WHO commits the crime? Shocking that someone would ask.
And the City and the TUSD want us to be a “Immigrant Welcoming Community”
We are stupid.
Frank T, and Gary H, How can you place the blame on an entire community because of the action’s of a few. Is every white middle class Caucasian held accountable for the actions of those responsible for the massacre of the children in Sandy hook elementary or the theater in Colorado, Oklahoma, or even right here in AZ and the list goes on? No they’re not . Are your neighborhoods constantly under the microscope ? No they are not. Non the less there are drug problems within the community teenage drinking etc….. One thing that is for sure however, racism has no place in balancing the scales of justice.
Dave D.
What in the hell are you talking about. The article was about letting in millions of illegal aliens. And the effect this invasion will have on the USA. It’s not my fault that the Progressive Liberal City Council and the Liberal community here thinks that it os OK to bring them all in.
The core of the City limits of Tucson is Democratic. They love having the illegals here.
Dave D, I AM held accountable each time there is a crime with a gun. The original, stupidly bigoted posts you responded to were ignorant on their own but yours showed ignorance has no racial barriers.