So last week I said that we would have to prepare for next year’s immigration battles at the State. I certainly didn’t have to wait long. Not days after my last blog, the Times Picayune reported that Representative Geymann was preparing his bills for next year. That didn’t take long!

So now what do we do? We have to wake up, get involved, learn the issues, talk with friends, invite relatives, marshal up your networks, tell them to learn what is going on, teach them about what is going on, do all of these things and more. In short, create a movement so large and so significant that we present ourselves next year as a powerful force of community will. Short of this, I don’t see how we will be able to experience the same successes next year that we experienced this year.

It’s sort of a shame, really. We should be celebrating, as a state, our victory. The State of Louisiana should be marketing itself, right now, as a place that is friendly to human beings because we DO NOT strip away rights here based upon legal status of entry into this country. But we can’t celebrate. Already, we are being called out. Representative Geymann is only one person among many others who will bring more ill-conceived, citizen-harming bills next year. Call me crazy or call me cynical, I am only drawing upon what has been the national trend. And in following the national trend, it appears that Louisiana will be looking at the possibility of a stronger, more painful immigration battle next year. I wish this weren’t the case, but with Representative Geymann’s public announcement, it appears we are already heading in that direction.

So, my dear friends, as I said last week, it is time to prepare. Maybe, as we prepare, we should consider the history of this country and reflect upon what it means to live here. It may be that the immigration issue will play out (or maybe it already is playing out) as this century’s major civil rights issue. The African American community fought long and hard, suffered many wrongs, before they gained the rights due to them as human beings. Maybe we can learn from that. Maybe we can carry some of that history with us as we advocate for our fellow brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, etc. I say maybe, because it also may be that our case, the case of the undocumented immigrant, may find that many will NOT consider immigrants’ issues as a matter of civil rights. How is this? The rhetoric of the opposition will say, among many other inaccurate and indelible untruths, that “illegals” (as they like to say) don’t have rights simply because they are not citizens. This argument will come up again and again on many fronts–in housing, in employment, in public services, and so on. Yet, it will be up to us to remind the detractors, the opposition, whomever they may be, that it is this land’s very constitution that protects many human rights, including the right to due process, regardless of citizenship status. At the end of the day, this issue is about human dignity, and it is in our best interest to find solutions that uphold and respect human dignity rather than resort to demonizing individuals and families for having walked into our communities without proper documentation.

Tags: hispanic, hispanic community, hispanic community louisiana, hispanic community new orleans, hispanic immigrants, hispanic immigration louisiana, immigration, latino, latino community louisiana, latino community new orleans, latino immigrants, latino new orleans, latinola, Louisiana immigration

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Puentes Director. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.