"Unions are from Mars..." by Pancho Arguelles - cont.


It’s the policy makers who want to exclude people from legalizing their status.

The initial message was drawn up by folks in labor, and leaned heavily toward patriotic themes - such as language recalling that immigrants serve in the armed force to “defend our freedom around the world.” It also focused the call for legalization as one for “hard-working, tax-paying” immigrants. We didn’t believe the reference to defending freedom was useful in communities where the defense of U.S. freedom has been used as a rationale for U.S. support of re p ressive governments that created refugee flows, and we didn’t think it was useful for us to place narrow limits on legalization - our call should be broad; it’s the policy makers who want to exclude people from legalizing their status. While some language on the postcard was changed - the reference to defending freedom - the postcard message still did not represent a collaborative effort, with a message that might be more appealing for community organizations and faith-based groups to rally behind. In the end, the postcard collection - which is sometimes a great organizing tool - is very labor-intensive and was just not a priority tactic given everything else that is taking place.

 

However, after a difficult negotiation back and forth, the community organizations received some small concessions in the postcard language and decided to forge ahead for the good of the larger cause; after all, the unions were promising the resources to coordinate this mega-signature collection, heighten the visibility of the effort - and turn out 5,000 people for the culminating rally on October 9th.

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