DREAM Act Portal Forum - Kerry lends support to immigration marchers

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Mar 20, 2010
By John M. Guilfoil, Globe Staff

US Senator John Kerry expressed support today for about 1,500 Massachusetts immigrants and advocates who are heading to Washington D.C. to call for immigration reform.

"You deserve more than the empty rhetoric and impractical calls for mass deportation we see from opponents of comprehensive immigration reform," Kerry said today in a statement.

The Massachusetts marchers planned to join with tens of thousands of others on the National Mall on Sunday.

The marchers, who are demonstrating the same day as a historic health care vote in the House, are hoping to call attention to an issue they say has been neglected for the past year.

"We were very excited when President Obama talked about the importance of immigration reform and how his administration was working hard on the subject back in June," said Frank Soults, communications director for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, "but although he's made several statements, there hasn't been anything put forward in Congress yet."

Obama has promised to build bipartisan support for immigration reform, even though it's classically been seen as a divisive partisan issue.

On Friday, in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, two leading senators, New York Democrat Charles Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, outlined a new reform proposal intended to fix what they called a "badly broken" system.

The two senators said Americans overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration and support legal immigration. They called for requiring high-tech Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; strengthening border security; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a "path to legalization" for those already here.

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