How Children Pushing For Immigration Reform Are The Newest Civil Rights Leaders

[Tx4obama]

How Children Pushing For Immigration Reform Are The Newest Civil Rights Leaders

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, nearly 200 immigrant youths and family members marched with prominent civil rights leaders as part of national activist efforts to pressure House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to move an immigration reform bill forward. Joining the rally were four civil rights leaders who marched as children during the 1963 Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, a pivotal civil rights event that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a show of solidarity to the successors of the new civil rights movement, the leaders linked arms with children whose stories of family separation illustrate the suffering caused by the current immigration system.

In a move reminiscent of the 1963 Children’s Crusade, the youth members of the pro-reform coalition Fair Immigration Reform Movement’s ‘Keeping Families Together: Youth in Action’ marched as a way to pressure Congressional action on reform. The Crusade occurred at a time when desegregation efforts were waning; on Wednesday, Boehner said that the House would not go to conference with the approved Senate bill while others pitched the goal post to 2014.

Sixteen year old Jennifer Martinez, one of two teens who confronted Boehner on reform at Pete’s Diner on Wednesday, was present at the rally. Boehner told her that he would act on reform over breakfast, and yet only mere hours later publicly made an about-face.

“I didn’t come all the way from Washington to be lied to. He could have saved me the trouble,” Jennifer said. “I would have preferred honesty. He told us one thing and then hours later, he says another.”

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Full article here: http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/11/16/2940681/children-immigration-reform-civil-rights-issue/

[gopiscrap]

1. Excellent power to them!