IMMIGRATION MATTERS -- Backlash Against the Backlash Grows

by New America Media

Thu, Mar 23, 2006 4:54PM

There are clear signs that immigrants and their supporters in the religious, state government, labor and business sectors are fighting back against xenophobia being fanned by hard-line opponents of comprehensive immigration reform, writes Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--If 2005 was the Year of the Minutemen, 2006 is becoming the Year of Immigrants Rising. Just look at the tens of thousands of immigrants who marched in downtown Chicago last March 11 for immigrant rights and against restrictive immigration proposals.

Less than three months ago, the leadership of the House of Representatives, in a vicious act of "drive-by" legislating, rushed through a bill that experts consider to be the most anti-immigrant piece of legislation in the United States in 80 years.

Here are some of the lowlights of the Sensenbrenner bill, HR 4437:

-- 11 million undocumented immigrants would be declared "aggravated felons" for having come to this country to do back-breaking work at low wages in order to feed their families.

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