Immigration vigil boosts reform 4/30/06

Immigration vigil boosts reform

By Patrick Butler
Contributor

Some 1,500 people were urged to “look at the world as God might see it” by the Rev. Martha Scott, during an interfaith immigration reform rally and vigil April 23 at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines.

God sees the earth pretty much the way the astronauts saw it from outer space, with no national boundaries, said Scott, representing the United Methodist Northern Illinois Diocese along with other Christian, Jewish and Muslim speakers at what organizers described as a two-hour warmup for a massive May 1 immigration rally in Grant Park.

“The U.S. government is wrong on this one,” said Scott. “Detaining moms, dads and children is sin. When we separate ourselves from one another, we separate ourselves from God, and when we separate ourselves from God, we sin.”

“Today we are under one banner of love, one banner of justice, one banner of humanity,” said Father Claudio Diaz, director of the archdiocesan Office for Hispanic Ministry.

Similar sentiments were voiced by Tabassum Haleem of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, who quoted from a Koranic verse about how God created the various nations and tribes, “so you may get to know one another, not despise each other.”

Today, she said, it isn’t just Hispanics who are being targeted.

“Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some 500,000 Muslims have been impacted, either by being detained, harassed, fingerprinted or deported,” Haleem said. She called for “fairness, dignity, and an end to the hypocrisy that ignores illegal immigration when it’s convenient and cracks down when it’s expedient.”

Where people are from and how they got here shouldn’t matter, said the Rev. Albert Tyson, an African Methodist Episcopal minister and president of Clergy Speaks International.

“What matters is that each of us brought something to America to make it greater than the framers of the Constitution could ever have imagined,” he said.

Rabbi Victor Mirelman of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and Fred Tsao, policy director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, praised Illinois Sens. Dick Durban and Barack Obama for promoting immigration reform, but added “we must demand similar leadership from President George Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

“Comprehensive reform,” Tsao said, includes legalization for as many as 12 million illegal immigrants now living in the U.S., passage of the DREAM Act that would allow undocumented students who graduated from American high schools to pay the lower in-state tuition and apply for legal status.

Rally organizers said they also want easier reunification of families they say have been “torn apart” by the current system.

Speakers at the rally called for legalization but also a path to citizenship for those who are living, working and paying taxes in the United States. “It’s time to recognize their contributions and stop punishing people based on a broken immigration system,” said Lawrence Benito, associate director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Rally sponsors also want to block proposed measures authorizing construction of a wall along the Mexican border and make illegal entry a felony.

“We want to show Congress that the church will always defend the dignity and rights of all,” said Father Miguel Martinez, rector of Maryville’s Our Lady of Guadelupe Chapel.