tags: , , , , AVEF, Blog

Keeping Families Together Bus Tour Mobilizing Support for Immigration Reform Across Nation

Share This:

rallyThe Keeping Families Together Bus Tour is now well underway, with busfuls of immigrant families across the nation traveling around to key Congressional districts, asking the Congress members to support immigration reform. Georgia has just completed its bus tour, Oregon yesterday had a powerful kickoff with over a hundred people, and Washington state held big rallies yesterday and today.  The Florida bus tour met with members of Sen. Marco Rubio’s staff and shared their stories, while the North Carolina bus is heading toward DC and is scheduled to have meetings with Congress members there tomorrow.  Meanwhile, buses from Northern and Southern California met up today in Bakersfield after separate successful tours, and announced that Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) has told them he would support immigration reform.

Other bus tour events this week happened in Arizona, where Promise Arizona hosted a celebration and voter registration event last weekend.  In New England, a bus tour kicked off from New Hampshire and ended with a rally in New Haven, Connecticut.

In other immigration news this week:

  • A Florida House panel unanimously approved an in-state tuition bill for US-born children of undocumented immigrants this week, after a federal court struck down a state practice requiring US citizen children who had undocumented parents to pay higher tuition rates to go to college in Florida.
  • Leaders from Washington state’s agriculture, business, and faith communities have announced a new compact in support of immigration reform.  The compact is partly inspired by similar documents from Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, and urges Congress to pass immigration reform that supports businesses, families, and immigrant communities.  The compact also calls for a fair path to legal status and for law enforcement officers to focus on criminal activities instead of detaining immigrants for immigration violations.
  • In Massachusetts, two leaders have started a three-day fast to mark the sixth anniversary of an immigration sweep that picked up 361 workers from a leather goods factory.  To memorialize the sweep, David Rolando Oliva of the Workers Community Center and Francisco Ramos of united Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts will live 72 hours in just water and honey, in order to send the message that undocumented immigrants are not criminals.
  • The Colorado House is scheduled to pass its in-state tuition bill this week, which would be success at long last for a bill whose seven previous versions have all died.  The bill would make undocumented students eligible for resident tuition rates at state colleges and universities; Democrats hold a majority in the House and at least two Republicans have indicated they’ll vote for the bill.