Progressives: urge Clinton, Obama, Richardson, Edwards to support Elvira Arellano's "campaign of resistance"

Posted Mon, Jul 2, 2007 at 9:50 am
Dear fellow progressives:

Elvira Arellano - the undocumented person from Mexico currently seeking sanctuary in The Right Rev. Walter "Slim" Coleman's church in Chicago to avoid being deported and separated from her U.S.-born son - has issued a call to a "campaign of resistance". I urge all fellow progressives to not only heed the call, but to encourage the Democratic candidates to join with her in her struggle. Please go to campaign appearances by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and John Edwards and urge them to at least support Arellano, and perhaps even her "campaign of resistance" if we're lucky.

You can read her declaration here:
Hours after the Senate voted against advancing the immigration reform project, the Mexican activist Elvira Arellano announced a campaign of resistance against the U.S. government.

In a written statement, the leader of the movement Familia Unida (United Family) said that "if the Democrats and the Republicans cannot summon the courage to fix the broken law we will not sit quietly and see our families and our children cut to pieces on the broken pieces of that broken law."

She demanded an immediate moratorium on all raids and deportations.

Arellano... said [presumably August 15] would be the deadline the government will have to "revive and pass a comprehensive immigration reform."

Otherwise, pro-immigrant organizers will begin a campaign "aimed at bringing this government and this economy to a halt."

Representatives from the Centro Sin Fronteras and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights [press release link] also announced this morning they were prepared to take "economic actions" against corporations that support anti immigrant legislators and programming.

Also, a massive concentration of families and children is scheduled for July 17 in Washington D.C. to "confront the leaders of both parties and the President."
The above is an English translation of the Spanish version of an article at the site of the La Raza Newspaper (laraza.com/news.php?nid=44792). The article is marked as coming from EFE and what's left off from the above version is a call for a "hate moratorium" and for Lou Dobbs' show to be canceled.

Unfortunately, elviraspeaks.com is still "Bajo Construcction", so we have to turn to this Centro Sin Fronteras page to read more about the movimiento.

At that page - authored by Emma Lozano of Centro/Puebla Sin Fronteras and Elvira Arellano - they discuss how their struggle will continue even after an amnesty passes, they demand full legalization for almost all undocumented persons (quite a concession, since there are apparently some who would be rejected), complain about "small white led leftist organizations" interfering in the people's struggle, discuss the "the militancy of resistance", and say:
We have asserted that our demand to be here and to be fully enfranchised here is a right not a privilige and a destiny of our people to transform this nation.
Note to fellow progressives: we did Manifest Destiny, so what they want to do is OK.

They also sound a bit like Dick Morris, the New York Times, and the Democratic/GOP leadership:
Our message of attack is simple: the republicans are anti-family and their proposed system of labor is racist. Our lever of power is simple: Latinos will not vote for republicans. – or democrats that do not vote with us. We will vote against all republicans and will run independent candidates against democrats who oppose us.


UPDATE: I earlier misidentified Walter "Slim" Coleman as 'Walter "Slim" Whitman'. I apologize to the country singer with whose name I got his mixed-up.
Tags: 
comprehensive immigration reform
bill richardson
barack obama
lou dobbs
illinois coalition for immigrant and refugee rights

Comments

Jeebie (not verified)

Mon, 07/02/2007 - 20:43

Finally, the family values crowd shows its true colors. Either the democratic candidates endorse and submit to LaRaza, grant amnesty to millions of criminals, and stop the deportation of current and future invaders, or they will "bring this government to a halt". When a foreign power assists millions of its citizens to cross your border in the dark of night and threaten to bring your government down, everyone with a grade school education knows that as a definition of war. It is no longer about amnesty, or jobs and handouts that they want, it is everything, our lands included. Yesterday, when their numbers were few, they seemed to be little more than common pickpockets, a nuisance. Failure to enforce the law and the border, and to deport agressively has emboldened them beyond measure. They know our law enforcement is a joke, and now they have the numbers and want it all. The businesses, the banks, the land itself. Everything. If LaRaza completes the takeover of our government, guaranteed they will have no problem with imprisoning or deporting Americans. Invasion, followed by colonization (sanctuary states and cities), followed by threats to our government. Guess the concept of dhimmification isn't limited to Islam, looks like LaRaza is well versed, too. And pretty successful, if you look at our Senators. Hey, Bush...since you don't intend to use the military to defend the United States, can the People borrow them for a little while? We know who the enemy is, and what needs to be done.

llamajockey (not verified)

Mon, 07/02/2007 - 21:01

This is why I keep saying the the Democratic party is in far deeper doo-doo over immigration than the Republicans. All the Democrats need is for radical Mexican ethnocentric groups to show up in Denver next year and raise hell. You can just picture the brown berets screaming "El Mundo Entero Mira" and waving maps of Aztlan. Shameless pandering to Fundamentalist nutjobs over Terry Schiavo did not help the Republicans. Not only did it ultimately embarrass the Republicans, it rallied the Liberal Netroots after the crushing Presidential election defeat of 2004. Shameless pandering to radical Latinos is now set to bite the Democrats in the ass big time. Oh well I say lets do Elvira here a favor and name the repeal of the Anchor Baby loophole after her kid.

DfD(Democrats f... (not verified)

Mon, 07/02/2007 - 21:42

The Racist Bigoted Mexicans speak out against and threaten America and it's citizens, again. ICE doesn't need to search for this less than upstanding female. Deport her now DHS. Do your job or GET OUT! P.S. Still no father yet for the boy?? Is she that easy? A real role model!!

Fred Dawes (not verified)

Tue, 07/03/2007 - 01:01

Elvira Arellano's is a pig, she will never fight the good fight for freedom but would attack us with her little evil ideals of LaRaza, thank you Jeebie great read. Obama and the other's are our enemies. Long Live freedom and duty, and she will never understand what that mean's, just like Obama and the other Rat's.

Linda Walls (not verified)

Tue, 07/03/2007 - 01:04

Good Grief!! First we endure Cindy Shehan and her antics until she recently gave up - now we have Elvira demanding that we legalize all illegals by August 15th. Can't the rest of have a break from all this stupidity. This is no way to treat the citizens of this great country. Grow up, Elvira and go home and come back the right way. Then we might talk!! But demands from people who have no standing does not set will the American public. What nerve!!

llamajockey (not verified)

Tue, 07/03/2007 - 01:17

Cindy Sheehan is a US Citizen and mother of a US Soldier killed defending his country. She gave up because cowardly Democrats refused to respect the mandate of the 2006 election and move decisively to withdraw troop from Iraq. Instead they supported this failing surge which itself was not supported by many in the Pentagon or the Iraq Study Group. Agree with her or not she was always with in her constitutional rights to express her opinions. Elvira is not only not a US citizen. She is a repeated law violator. And she has not only has contempt for the laws of this country but for the overwhelming will of its people as it was expressed last week.

California girl (not verified)

Thu, 07/12/2007 - 19:47

This Arellano woman is full of ----!U.S. needs to hold the line and NEVER give into her line of rhetoric.She broke our laws and now is trying to use her child/family issues as leverage.Guess she thought she could just slide into the country as many others have done. Giving into to her would set a dangerous precedent.It is akin to terrorism and even those who want to become legal citizens should be fearful of that. Should any group from anywhere be allowed to come into our country, refuse to honor the laws of our land, try to blackmail us, and achieve their goal? HELLO AMERICA...Cut out the emotional issues here and look at the long term repercussions and how failure to hold our line could come back to bite us again and again.