#Not1More Deportation

All posts tagged alvarado

Immigration advocates called on President Obama on Monday to suspend deportations of undocumented workers who would qualify for legal status under a comprehensive immigration bill being debate in the Senate.

With an estimated 1,100 illegal immigrants per day being deported from the United States, the advocates said Obama has a moral obligation to stop breaking up families when lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow most of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants to apply for legal status.

“The president is not and cannot be a bystander in the process,” said Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “This is the moment for him to intervene.”

The advocates have been frustrated with the high levels of deportations during Obama’s presidency — more than 410,000 undocumented workers were deported last year, an all-time high. Obama declined a similar requestto stop deportations in February during a meeting at the White House with Latino, Asian-American, African-American and labor leaders.

At that time, the president emphasized that he is focused on “getting reformed passed, and not easing up on enforcement,” the advocates said. Republicans, and some Democrats, would like raise concerns if the administration were to ease up on deportations during the debate over comprehensive reform, the president told them.

Read More >>


Not1More Rally

Almost immediately after the bipartisan immigration reform bill was formally introduced early Wednesday in the Senate, calls for an end to the deportations of undocumented immigrants who could qualify for the bill started pouring in.

“President [Barack] Obama should seize the opportunity presented today by immediately suspending deportations, at a bare minimum for all those who would be included in the bill’s legalization provisions,” said Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Obama should ‘immediately’ stop deportations

In February, news broke about immigration authorities having a quota of 400,000 deportations for the year. Alvarado referred to the quota as “the biggest roadblock on the path to citizenship.” He also called on Obama to “take steps immediately to end the removal and criminalization of would-be citizens.”

Although Obama has been a vocal advocate of immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, his administration deported a record 1.5 million people in his first term as president.

report released in January estimates that the Obama administration will have deported about two million people by 2014 if it continues deporting about 400,000 people a year.

Read more: http://www.voxxi.com/obama-deportation-immigration-reform/#ixzz2Qqp12tp0