A Trek For Justice

Washington, D.C.—Note: Kica Matos, who has helped craft New Haven’s immigration policy for years as director of Junta For Progressive Action and then City Hall’s Community Services Administration, joined 16 busloads of other New Haveners to a pro-immigrant rights rally Sunday. She sent back this account.

Anyone driving by the Long Wharf terminal on Sunday before sunrise would have noticed a strange sight: buses. Plenty of them, sitting idly, waiting for passengers to fill the seats. Early Sunday morning, hundreds of New Haven residents from all walks of life woke up in the early hours, and made their way to Long Wharf to fill those seats. By 7:30 am, 16 buses were en route from New Haven to Washington D.C.. New Haveners traveled to join hundreds of thousands of others heading to the nation’s capital with one goal in mind: to demand immigration reform.

It’s been over a year since President Obama began his term in office, and despite assurances that immigration reform would be high on his Administration’s agenda, there has been no movement to fix a broken system. In many respects, things have gotten worse. Deportations are at an all time high, with an estimated 387,000 individuals forcefully removed during the first year of the Obama administration, an almost 50 percent increase in enforcement over the last year of Bush’s presidency.

And while the brutal home raids of the former administration have ceased, they have been replaced by immigration audits of large employers, a move that has also had a devastating impact on immigrant families and their communities.

And so New Haven, like thousands of other communities around the country, responded to the call from the Reform Immigration for America campaign to deliver a forceful message to Congress and the White House. The New Haven delegation was in fact the largest from the New England states, a result of countless hours of work and coordination from individuals and groups including City Hall, JUNTA, Unidad Latina en Accion, the People’s Center, St. Rose de Lima Church, Henry Fernandez, John Jairo Lugo, Guadalupe Montiel, Alderwoman Migdalia Castro, Alderman Joey Rodriguez and State Rep. Juan Candelaria.

By early afternoon, waves of white T‑shirts and American flags could be seen en masse moving from multiple directions, as tens of thousands peacefully made their way to the National Mall. Chants of ​“Si se puede!” (“Yes, we can!) could occasionally be heard as people took their places at the Mall to listen to a series of incredibly powerful speeches from a diverse set of leaders, many of whom not too long ago were tirelessly organizing their constituents to bring about ​“Change” in the election of President Obama.

Estimates placed the crowd at over 200,000.

Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP, pledged solidarity with the reform movement, rallying the crowd with the organizational chant ​“Fired Up! Ready to Go!” New Haven Mayor John DeStefano received an enthusiastic roar from the crowd after urging them to seize the moment, calling for an end to the wait for reform. Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in L.A. issued a call for participants to use their phones, their voices and their bodies to press Congress and the President to restore dignity in the lives of millions of hard-working community members.

Perhaps the most moving speech came from U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, an ardent advocate of immigration reform and author of the most progressive bill on the issue pending in Congress. With great eloquence, he stated that:

“[T]he wait is over. The time is now. Justice for immigrants cannot wait. It cannot be delayed because of the fears of politicians. Today, we are flipping over a new page on the calendar. Yesterday’s page was one of ​‘fear,’ and ​‘finger-pointing’ and ​‘waiting.’ We are turning to a new day that says ​‘justice’… After Dr. King said ​‘Justice now,’ in that building, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and President Lyndon Johnson made equality real for African-Americans. How did he do it? With a pen. A simple pen. Abraham Lincoln had a pen. Lyndon Johnson had a pen. My friends, Barack Obama has a pen. President Obama’s pen can turn our hope into victory. We want Barack Obama to use his pen. We want him to use it now.”

The rally wound down in the late afternoon. This time, the marchers made their way off the Mall, with the New Haven delegation walking back with thousands of others to Union Station to hop on the buses for the long ride home. Exhausted, no doubt. But also exhilarated. Determined. And proud to have been a part of making history.