JCUA Panel Explores Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Thursday, March 4, 2010
By: Katherine Randall

Panelist: "It's time for a call to action."

Ira Azulay (from left); Peggy Slater, Rabbi Maralee Gordon; Reyna Wences.

Eighteen-year-old Reyna Wences can’t afford to go to college because she can’t apply for federal loans. She can’t apply for federal loans because she, like roughly 12 million others in the U.S., is undocumented.

Wences was among the speakers at a "lunch-and-learn" event sponsored by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs in March.

Moderated by immigration attorney Ira Azulay, a member of JCUA's policy committee, the panel featured Rabbi Maralee Gordon, McHenry County Jewish Congregation; Peggy Slater, JCUA board member; and Wences.

“I am being denied my education because of my immigrant status,” said Wences, who came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was nine years old. “This is a really inhumane way of living,” she said through tears.

Wences, leader of the Immigrant Youth Justice League (IYJL), and others are fighting for legislation that will take the undocumented out of the shadows and make them legal members of society.

“It’s time for a call to action,” said Peggy Slater, JCUA immigrant rights activist. Slater said comprehensive immigration reform needs to happen now or “we are going to be left with this devastating system.”

This isn't the first time the nation has considered immigration reform. Why is this time any different?

"The coalition is broader and much smarter," said Azulay. "There is a different kind of energy with the new effort for immigration reform. Supporters are now realizing that there are economic and political advantages to having a population of immigrations in America."

Azulay added that denying citizenship to immigrants drives wages down, leads to law enforcement problems and creates an underclass.

JCUA and other groups are backing H.R. 4321, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009, introduced in December by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D.-Ill.). If passed, the act would allow undocumented immigrants to become legalized by applying for conditional residence and after six years apply for green cards, according to an Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) outline of the bill.

Eligible immigrants must have been living in the U.S. as of Dec. 15, 2009 and must be contributing members of society through work, education, military service or community service. The act would serve to calm the fears of the undocumented and help put an end to a system Slater said has had a “hideous impact” on the U.S.

“These people are contributing to the country. It’s only fair to give them rights,” Slater said.

Slater said immigrants have their rights violated on a regular basis.  Oftentimes, she said, detained immigrants aren’t given counsel, are given inadequate food and aren’t allowed visitors. “Due process is not afforded these people,” she said.

In addition to legalizing undocumented immigrants, CIR ASAP would call for higher Department of Homeland Security (DHS) standards with regards to how immigrants in detention centers are treated.

Rabbi Gordon, an immigrant rights advocate who has spent time visiting detainees at the McHenry County Jail, said the U.S. immigration system is a broken one.

Some people, she said, end up in jail because they overstay their visas. Others end up there after living their whole lives off the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) radar, like a man she met named Francisco, who came to the U.S. as a child.

Francisco ended up in jail because he never got around to getting his papers straightened out, which Gordon said isn’t an unusual occurrence.

“This is the only place many of them have ever known,” she said. “They are facing returning to a country where they have little ties.”

Each day, said Slater, about 1,100 immigrants are deported from the U.S. “That’s almost 2,000 people per congressional district disappearing each year,” she said.

They’ve also disappeared in another way. Since 2003 an estimated 107 immigrants have died while in custody at immigration detention centers in the U.S.

“Very, very serious human rights violations [are] going on,” said Slater. She said that now, more than ever, support is needed to make immigration reform a reality.

“We are at a very critical place. If we stop here, we’ve done terrible damage.”

Wences agreed.

“They need to fix the broken system by passing comprehensive immigration reform legislation,” she said. “It has to be addressed as soon as possible.”

The lunch-and-learn discussion was held as a prelude to the huge immigration reform on Washington, March 21-22.

Read JCUA's account of the march in Washington

Why We Should Care: The Jewish Imperative for Immigration Reform