Locals rally for immigration reform

A coalition of labor, business, faith and immigrant rights leaders gathered in downtown Las Vegas on Monday to launch the local leg of a national campaign pushing reform of America's immigration laws.

The campaign, dubbed Reform Immigration for America, seeks to encourage lawmakers this year to consider comprehensive immigration reform that emphasizes keeping families together.

"All of us have seen the disastrous effects of this broken (immigration) system, which has enforcement only as its approach," said Peter Ashman, chairman of Nevada's chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "The immigration system must be overhauled to create and accommodate a balanced and sensible approach to immigration, one that takes into account our need for secure and orderly borders and protects our integrity as a nation of immigrants."

About 50 people gathered outside the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse for the launch, one of dozens held in cities across the country, including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Boston.

Local speakers included representatives from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, the International Hispanic Church of Las Vegas and Culinary Local 226.

Millions of immigrants "have been suffering for many, many years and living in the shadows," said Geoconda Arguello-Kline, president of the Culinary union, which represents about 60,000 workers. "These immigrants are a big contribution to this country. They work every single day."

In 2007, Congress considered the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, but the bill failed. Immigration rights activists are more optimistic about the chances of a federal immigration reform plan moving forward this year with Barack Obama in the White House and a Democrat-controlled Congress.

Obama is slated to meet next week with congressional leaders to discuss U.S. immigration laws.

"We are at the dawn of a new day and a new era in immigration reform," said Marco Rauda, state director of Democracia Ahora -- Democracy Now -- a nonpartisan Hispanic advocacy organization.

Immigrant rights advocates want that reform to stop deportations that separate families.

In a report released earlier this year, Human Rights Watch used Census data and figures released by the Pew Hispanic Center to estimate that more than a million spouses and children living in the U.S. had been separated from their parents, husbands or wives because of deportations between 1997 and 2007.

Ashman said immigration reform is necessary in part because trying to "remove the undocumented population" isn't realistic.

"It's too costly, unworkable and un-American," he said. "It has not worked."

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.