Immigrant Rights March Set for July 4, 2012

SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

By Elaine Ayala

July 3, 2012

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Immigrant-rights-march-set-for-July-4-3679860.php

Bolstered by recent White House moves to postpone deportations of younger immigrants and the Supreme Court's decision to halt major portions of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 law, San Antonio activists will hold their second annual March for Immigrant Rights through the city's West Side on Independence Day.

Participants will hold a “ procesión de velas,” a Wednesday evening procession by candlelight, instead of repeating last year's march in July's scorching heat.

Their goal is to bring attention to the November elections and what they see as a slight softening of both Democratic and Republican stances on immigration, or what spokesman Carlos de Leon called “the legacy of George W. Bush's courting of the Latino vote.”

“It gives us bargaining power,” he said. “It's finally what we've been hoping for. If we truly organize, we'll have a say” in the shape of future immigration legislation.

“We still want comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act,” said Jaime Martinez, founder and board president of the Cesar E. Chavez Legacy and Educational Foundation, one of several groups involved in the march. “Immigrants are workers. They're not lazy, and they're not criminals.”

Ultimately, San Antonio immigration activists, like many around the country, want an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws as well as acknowledgement that immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy in significant ways, especially in the Social Security earnings suspense file, a fund of taxes collected under bad Social Security numbers that won't be paid as benefits until the numbers are cleared up.

Assumed to be partly from fake Social Security cards used by immigrants, the fund is growing by $7 billion a year. Martinez called it “the best-kept secret in America,” adding, “It shows hard-working immigrants have paid their taxes into Social Security in billions of dollars.”

“We're not asking for the sky,” he said. “We're asking for a just pathway to citizenship and legalization. Reuniting family is very key, and protection of civil and constitutional rights, which is what America is all about.”

“We're going to demand respect for our communities and for our families,” de Leon added. “We don't want to continue to be demonized and used as a political football.”

The march begins with a news conference at 6:30 p.m. in front of the Guadalupe Theater. Participants are encouraged to be there by 6 p.m. Congressional candidates Lloyd Doggett, running in the 35th Congressional District, and Joaquín Castro, seeking to represent the 20th, will speak. Both are Democrats.

Wednesday's event is one of several across the country in advance of the Sept. 15 national Viva El Pueblo Latino procession to the Lincoln Memorial, a trip that will include lobbying efforts with congressional leaders to press for a permanent solution to immigration problems. Martinez is a co-chair of that national effort.