Yesterday, when Mitt Romney visited Birmingham, Alabama for a fundraising event at the city’s exclusive restaurant — “The Club” — he was met outside by a number of protestors from the Immigrant Youth Leadership Initiative of Alabama.
The group chanted “education, not deportation” and held up signs that read “no papers, no fear.”
Last year, Alabama passed the “worst anti-immigrant law” in the nation (HB 56), which has since been tweaked into another bill (HB 658) that doesn’t make the situation for immigrants in Alabama any better. Mitt Romney has stated support for similar, state-based anti-immigrant legislation, and once called Arizona–which has its own anti-immigrant law–a “model for the nation.”
More from AL.com, which details some more of Mitt Romney’s anti-immigrant vision:
Romney, he said, called Arizona’s immigration law a national model, expressed his support for measures that encouraged immigrants to self-deport, and has opposed proposals that would create a path to citizenship for those here illegally.
Francisco Lopez, a construction worker from Decatur, said he came to the rally in the company of his two children who are now high school graduates, but whom he brought to the United States when they were ages 2 and 4. They are in limbo, unable to go to college, because they can’t provide a Social Security number, he said. At the same time, they are thoroughly American and have no memory of Mexico, he said.
“They want to go to school and they can’t,” he said.
Victor Palafox, who organized the rally, spoke to a reporter : “we’re undocumented immigrants and we’ve lost all the fear – we’re not going to continue to let them do this against our communities.” Watch the video below:
Rumor has it that Mitt Romney’s only comment on the protest was that the protesters were “too loud,” forcing officers to ask the protestors to leave.
We know what we’re up against. We’re up against a man who does not find us worthy of his acknowledgement and so despite that, we’re going to keep working.
