5-17-06, 9:31 am

WASHINGTON (PAI) – Leaders of the immigrant rights coalition that mobilized masses of people for demonstrations nationwide on April 10 and May 1 announced a stepped-up campaign that includes lobbying lawmakers, more marches and plans to register and mobilize at least a million new voters around the immigration issue. At a press conference keynoted by Service Employees Vice President Eliseo Medina, organizers of “We Are America,” the coalition’s new name, outlined plans for lobbying in D.C. and L.A. on May 17, as well as mass rallies in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington on or around Labor Day.

The group’s goal is to register 1 million voters nationwide and get them to the polls this fall, with immigrant rights as their top issue. Medina conceded it would be difficult, especially since many sons and daughters of immigrants would be too young to vote in 2006. “But there are elections in 2008 and 2010 and 2012,” he added.

The march and the lobbying are timed to coincide with renewed Senate debate over a comprehensive immigration reform bill. And organizers of the mass events, which drew more than 1.5 million people around the U.S. in the previous rallies, made it clear that the Senate’s plan doesn’t quite go far enough.

“Each and every proposal being considered now is not acceptable to the millions who will vote pro-immigration in November,” warned Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

What the undocumented workers and their supporters, including unions, want is legislation that puts the workers on the path to “green cards” – permanent residence – puts them under equal protection of all U.S. laws, including labor laws, reunifies families “and protects wages and working conditions of immigrants and native-born workers.”

Starting July 1, unions, churches and other organizations “will throw open their doors” to become immigrant education and registration centers, Salas said. “We’ll sign them up to vote. Any elected representative who votes against the immigrant community will have to answer to that community, their children and their grandchildren.”

To put more pressure on lawmakers for legislation to ease the path for 11 million-12 million undocumented workers, the SEIU, the Laborers and the other organizations, including the union, Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American groups that back the rallies will also kick off their massive education and registration campaign in July.

Medina, his union’s top organizer, said the education centers and voter registration of the immigrants will involve more than 200 organizations nationwide.

He told Press Associates afterwards that “every local in SEIU will be engaged” in the struggle and that 30 – including those in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, D.C., Phoenix, Houston and Seattle – already are involved in the campaign.

The Laborers plan a similar effort, said Yanira Merino, the union’s immigration coordinator. Both SEIU and the Laborers have large proportions of immigrant workers, in occupations such as nursing, janitorial and cafeteria work (SEIU) and residential construction (the Laborers).

“We’ll go to Colorado, Wisconsin, and we already have five organizers working on the issue in D.C., and more in both Northern and Southern California, as well as Locals 78 and 79 in New York,” she told Press Associates. “And Local 300 in Los Angeles has already set up a citizenship program” for immigrant workers.

If the drive succeeds and the undocumented workers are legalized, all workers could benefit, Medina said after the press conference – and so could his union. He pointed out that employer exploitation of the undocumented workers drives down not just their wages, but other workers’ wages and conditions.

And he estimated that among the unorganized workers in the industries SEIU represents, including nurses, cleaners, cafeteria workers, and janitors, there are some “three million to four million” undocumented workers presently. Labor law remedies do not cover them now, thanks to a Supreme Court decision several years ago.

The organizers also vowed to continue their campaign against a punitive enforcement-only bill (HR 4437) the GOP-run House passed – with 36 Democratic votes – last December. That measure, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), makes the undocumented workers felons. It also makes those who help them – including teachers and union organizers – criminals, too.

“The Sensenbrenner bill has created a big movement not just in the big cities” such as Chicago, where 400,000 marched, or Los Angeles, which drew 500,000, said Ramon Aviles of the Northwest Oregon Farmworkers Union. “It’s also created the movement in rural areas. On April 10, we were able to mobilize 20,000 people in my rural county, which has a total population of 30,000. In Medford, we had 2,000 in a town of 12,000.”

From International Labor Communications Association