After immigration raids, Latino leaders ask Obama to show ‘moral leadership’

*The issue seems to be a simple choice of following, or not, the deportation orders issued by immigration judges. But the action is laden with nuance and contradictions. In November President Obama promised that his deportation priorities would be felons, not families.  When the latest round of deportations was leaked through the press the immigration advocacy community was taken by surprise. And while individual members of congress have criticized the deportations, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, as a group, has remained silent. The White House says the deportations are in reaction to a surge in immigrants from Central America, but recently the President hasn’t held back in his use of the executive action pen to force change. It seems the idea of “moral leadership” can be spread many ways on this issue. VL


washingtonpostBy Pamela Constable and David Nakamura, The Washington Post

Latino advocates and leaders rallied outside the White House Friday morning to demand that President Obama stop a new policy of rounding up and deporting families who entered the United States illegally after fleeing poverty and violence in Central America.

Amid rising concern among Democrats in Congress over the raids that began last week with 141 women and children detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in three states, the group asked that Obama show “moral leadership” and grant temporary protected status to the families, similar to what many Central American war refugees were given in the 1990s.
“We have a refugee crisis, not an immigration problem,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who said he was gathering support in Congress for a letter to the president asking him to stop the raids.

“Congress cannot sit idly by,” Gutierrez said, adding, “We, too, are responsible” for the scourge of violence and drugs that plague Central America today.

Click HERE to read the full story.


[Photo by Luis Gutierrez/Flickr]

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