Immigration Reform 2013 Mass Rally Held In Washington, D.C.

Photos: HNG/HNNUSA

Thousands of Hispanics and non-Hispanics from across the country gathered at the nation's capitol to push for immigration reform, "The Time is Now" they chanted across the mall.

By H. Nelson Goodson

April 10, 2013

Washington, D.C. - On Wednesday, more than 100,000 people, immigrant rights organizations, religious groups, union workers, supporters and public officials from around country gathered at the national mall in the nation's capitol during a mass rally to advocate for immigration reform that would include an affordable path to citizenship for more than 11 million of undocumented immigrants and their children considered DREAMers.

Rally participants also advocated for an immediate halt to immigration raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that usually result in the separation of families.

Many activists took the opportunity while in Washington, D.C. to visit their U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senators whether Democrats or Republicans. Afterwards, in Sunny and 88 degree weather they gathered at the national mall for the 3:00 p.m. rally, which Olga Taño, Congressmen/women and U.S. Senators addressed the rally.

Rally organizers told the participants, that a group has been form called "Alliance for Immigration Reform and Path to Citizenship" working behind the scene to advocate for reform.

The U.S. Senate version of a tentative proposed immigration reform version will focus on three major points. 1. Bill must include implementation plan to secure the southern U.S. border before it starts accepting and documenting immigrants. 2. The voluntary use of E-Verify by employers should be mandatory to verify employment legal status. 3. Create a tracking system of issued Visas to foreigners and making sure they don't overstay their Visas authority.
The senate bill is expected to be released by next week and will have a cutoff date of December 2011. Anyone who arrived after that date won't quality for legalisation. The U.S. House bill will follow and will include a January 2011 cutoff date.
On April 9, Facebook developer Mark Zuckerberg and 10 other founders, Aditya Agarwal, Vice President of Engineering at Dropbox; Jim Breyer, Partner at Accel Partners; Matt Cohler, General Partner at Benchmark; Ron Conway, Special Advisor to SV Angel; John Doerr, General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Joe Green, Founder and President of FWD.us; Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn; Drew Houston, Founder and CEO of Dropbox; Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and Managing Partner of The Social+Capital Partnershipand Ruchi Sanghvi, Vice President of Operations at Dropbox created FWD.us to promote immigration reform. Zuckerberg with members of the tech community will lobby for immigration reform. "I'm proud that so many leaders in the tech community are coming together to promote comprehensive immigration reform and building the knowledge economy. Today we're announcing FWD.us, an organization to advocate for getting the most talented and hardest working people into our economy, through immigration, education and investment in science. We just launched FWD.us, an advocacy organization created to promote policies leading to a stronger knowledge economy, including comprehensive immigration reform," Zuckerberg announced in conjunction with the resurgence April 10 movement for immigration reform nationally.
Last Friday in a major policy change breakthrough, ICE settled a federal civil lawsuit with 22 New York plaintiffs for $1 million in damages, including fees for illegal raids and home intrusions between 2006 to 2007. ICE agreed to change their raid policy of invading properties and homes without consent or judicial warrants. Also, ICE agreed to end its armed military style sweeps and tactics while inside a home, unless eminent danger exists.

Under the Adriana Aguilar v. ICE lawsuit case settlement agreement, it forced ICE to change its national warrantless operations policy dealing with raids, which now will require permission from home owners, renters or family members at a residence to be allowed to enter a property or home. ICE will no longer be allowed to force their way into homes to terrify victims at gunpoint or engaged in protective sweeps unless an eminent danger exists. From now on, ICE agents will need to have "judicial warrants or valid consent" to enter a home, according to the settlement agreement.

Eight of the plaintiffs that included men and women had their immigration proceeding cases either deferred or terminated, according to the LatinoJustice organization, which was one of the groups involved in the lawsuit.

Six people were spotted with anti-immigrant signs near the Immigration Reform Rally in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. Four of them are members of "Save the Marylands" and "New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement." Two others exhibiting several colored lettering signs were not identified. The pro-immigrant rally participants out number them by 16,000 to 1. No confrontations between the anti-immigrant groups and rally participants were reported by the U.S. Capitol Police. (Photos: HNN/HNNUSA)