New York Times
By Julia Preston
August 1, 2013
Seeking to send a message to lawmakers as they leave to face their constituents over the August recess, 41 leaders of groups supporting an overhaul of the immigration system held a noisy but peaceful sit-in on Capitol Hill on Thursday and were arrested, in an escalation of their tactics.
Just after midday, the protesters filed onto Independence Avenue near the Capitol and sat in the street, unfurling a banner that said “Keep Our Families Together, Immigration Reform Now.” With a crowd of several hundred cheering from the sidewalk and calling for “citizenship now,” the protesters were handcuffed one by one and whisked away in police vehicles.
Meanwhile, young immigrants delivered cantaloupes to the offices of more than 200 House lawmakers who voted in June to halt an Obama administration program that provides reprieves from deportation for some young people here illegally. That vote was on an amendment by Representative Steve King of Iowa, a Republican who created a stir last week when he said that many young immigrants had “calves the size of cantaloupes” from running drugs across the Southwest border.
Among those arrested were labor leaders — including Eliseo Medina, secretary treasurer of the Service Employees International Union; Arlene Holt Baker, a vice president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.; and Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America — as well as Deepak Bhargava, Angélica Salas, Gustavo Torres, Petra Falcón and other immigrants’ rights advocates from around the country.
It was the first time during the immigration debate this year that so many leaders had opted for civil disobedience.
“We have marched, we have rallied, we have prayed, we have written, we have called and now it is time to take it up another notch,” Mr. Bhargava said just before his arrest. “We think it is important that the Republican leadership understand the intensity of the feeling in the community about the need for a vote on citizenship.”
The protesters said they were expressing frustration to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives because it had not taken any action on an immigration bill by an Aug. 1 deadline the groups had set earlier this year. Organizers said the action represented the beginning of a campaign of town hall meetings, rallies, vigils and other events in Republican districts during the recess that would extend into the fall, as the House considers whether to vote on any bill that would give legal status to immigrants here illegally.
The protesters were charged with blocking a street and face $50 fines. The police began releasing them on Thursday afternoon. Fifteen more protesters were arrested in the afternoon as they sat down and chanted slogans in the hallway outside the office of the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio.
The Senate passed a broad bill in June that offers a 13-year path to citizenship for 11 million unauthorized immigrants. House leaders have said they will not take up that bill, and House Republicans are sharply divided over whether to move on any legalization, which many conservatives reject as amnesty for lawbreakers.
As House members head to their districts, supporters of an overhaul said they would ollow them, to bring pressure and to work to outdo any mobilization from groups against an amnesty.
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