Monday, May 01, 2006

A Day Without Immigrants

What a day to return to posting!

First of all, a huge apology to all our readers for the time we have been without posting. No excuses, only the commitment to retake from now on this BLOG at least once a week or everytime important news come up.

Today, over the US the "Day Without Immigrants" actually materialized despited the threat of immigration officials to round up illegal immigrants and from threats from businesses and schools. Thousands and perhaps millions of not only Mexican illegal immigrants, but also legal immigrants and the rest of the immigrant community in the US joined protests (not only Mexicans immigrate illegally to the US). Along with that, a boycott was called to not consume or attend school or work in the US. In Mexico, many have decided to join in the boycott and not consume American made products and more importantly brands. It's Labour Day in Mexico so not going to work for American companies didn't make much sense.

As you may or not know, recently the US passed a bill to reform immigration in which the highlights are basically augmenting illegal immigration to felony status within the US and a proposed "anti-immigration" wall to be built along the US-Mexico border. Besides that, other issues that have flared up public sentiment are the Minute Men, the "immigrant" hunting games and other violations to migrant's human rights along the border.

In this space, we were quiet in April. We respect the US's sovereignity to pass laws as they see fit and to limit immigration into their country, as they see fit too. But we do fall in line with your "paisanos" or co-nationals and other latinos in the US in solidarity, because we are concerned about the respect their human rights are given in the US.

We believe, it is possible to reflect that even if illegal and even if "felons", immigrants are human beings and they deserve to have their human rights respected. They deserve to be identified and they deserve to seek their consulate and embassy for help. I ask you as a citizen of the United States to check the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ask your congress man or woman to seek immigration reform that goes along with those guidelines.

You can view the declaration here: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

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