Thursday Jan. 31, 2013 VOL . LIV, ISSUE 15
INSIDE
SUPER BOWL PREVIEW, PAGE 15
NYC STRIKE, PAGE 9
ONLINE www.theloquitur.com
Check out our website for more content on-the-go, or tweet us @Loqwitter. Let us know what you’d like to see, or tweet us your pics with this week’s issue. What was your favorite part of this week’s issue?
‘Now is the time’ for compassion without compromise C
EDITORIAL
ongress and President Obama are proposing immigration reform. After a decade of fighting, it may happen. We are happy that progress is beginning, but we believe that what both the President and Congress propose is missing important points. We agree more with what the Justice for Immigrants Campaign proposes, which adds compassion to the equation, supporting reform that:
1. Provides a path to citizenship for undocumented persons in the country. 2. Preserves family unity as a cornerstone of our national immigration system. 3. Provides legal paths for low-skilled immigrant workers to come and work in the United States. 4. Restores due process protections to our immigration enforcement policies. 5. Addresses the root causes (push factors) of migration, such as persecution and economic disparity. True immigration reform may be on the horizon – if President Obama takes a more critical approach to some of the issues being proposed. In his speech at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, Obama cited four main points his administration will focus on to carry out his vision: continued border security strength, a sharper crackdown on employers that hire undocumented workers, the creation of a path to citizenship, and an overall reworking of our lapsed legal immigration system. It’s meaningful that his speech took place at a high school in Nevada, a state in which over a quarter of the population is Latino, according to Las Vegas’ local NBC affiliate. The news outlet also cited a 2011 Pew Hispanic Center study that found 7.2 percent of Nevada’s residents are undocumented immigrants – a larger percentage than any other state. On top of it, however, the high school location serves as an acknowledgement that immigration most affects our youth – individuals who are often marked “illegal” or “alien” without the recognition that, more often than not, these youths came to the U.S. as infants or toddlers; that, without their parents’ treacherous journey to America, which was their only true chance at pursuing the American dream due to a failing immigration system, these children would have been trapped in the same cyclical poverty their parents tried so hard to escape. Clearly the location for Obama’s speech was chosen to reach those who this initiative most represents. But it’s been a long time coming. The DREAM Act, which could have provided permanent residency to undocumented immigrants if they met certain criteria like actively working towards a high school or college diploma, was first proposed in 2001. A federal version was never passed – but a state version was passed in California in 2011 and, the day after Obama’s reelection, Maryland passed their version of the DREAM Act. IMMIGRATION, PAGE 2