From our friends in CA - No to SAVE Act

PRESS STATEMENT



Overwhelming Majority!

The Los Angeles City Council Resoundingly Votes for a Resolution Against the SAVE Act.



For Immediate Release: March 26, 2008 Contact: Anike Tourse, 213.353.1339,

310.622.3637 cell, anike@chirla.org

Los Angeles – The City Council voted on a resolution opposing the Save America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act (HR 4088) sponsored by Representatives Shuler (D-NC) and Tancredo (R-CO). Angelica Salas, Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), issued the following statement in response:

“The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles is both proud and pleased to stand with such community organizations as AJC, MALDEF, ADL, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Catholic Charities, NAKASEC, ACLU, Southern California and Hermandad Mexicana Latin-Americana in applauding the LA City Council’s resounding opposition to the SAVE Act. Passage of the SAVE Act would continue to waste millions of tax payer dollars on enforcement, detention and deportation programs that have been tried for the last twenty years and failed to end undocumented immigration.



The city council recognizes that enactment of this legislation would likely lead to chaotic and uneven implementation and expand raids in immigrant communities. All across America, and as a result of ICE’s raids and deportations, abandoned U.S citizen children live in fear as their parents have been taken away from them. Immigrant workers who are the backbone of many sectors of our U.S. economy, including Los Angeles, are being hunted down for the act of working to feed their families. Employers have been forced to divert their attentions from increasing productivity and competing commercially, to hap-hazard contingency plans of what they will do should their business fall apart because of an ICE worksite raid or other employment verification scheme. Thank goodness that Los Angeles council members understand that the SAVE Act attempts to massively expand a broken, faulty, computer employment verification system to fix our broken immigration laws and that it just won’t work. The SAVE Act will single-handedly devastate businesses, workers, and families.



We remember that in 2006, Rep. Sensenbrenner and others tried to pass this type of legislation and these actions failed! Now in 2008 Representative Schuler and Bilbray are trying again, and they will fail as well. Thank you to the Los Angeles city council for knowing better and for moving decisively to stop this attack on immigrant families and our fragile economy.”



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