US Social Forum 2007: IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

US SOCIAL FORUM 2007: IMMIGRANT RIGHTS (Atlanta, GA) featuring: Trishala Deb, Audre Lorde Project (ALP) Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) Glory Kilanko, Women Watch Afrika Gerald Lenoir, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) Jose Matus, La Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras Alexis Mazon, Coalicion de Derechos Humanos Ed Ott, New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO Ruben Solis, Southwest Workers Union (SWU) Cathi Tactaquin, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) Since 9/11, immigrant communities around the United States have experienced increased and intensified oppression from repressive local, state and federal legislation, law enforcement, and racist right-wing vigilantes. Following swift passage of the infamous "Sensenbrenner bill" - HR4437 - by the House of Representatives, millions of immigrants and their supporters took to the streets in unprecedented mobilizations across the country in the Spring of 2006 and again in 2007 to denounce the growing repression and to reclaim the rights of immigrant communities. Immigration policy deeply impacts civil liberties, human rights, and workers' rights, affecting families, education, health care, and labor, wages, and working conditions for all working people, both immigrant and U.S.-born, in the U.S. These historic mobilizations have demonstrated the resurgence of a grassroots immigrant rights movement. It is vital, as we move forward, to recapture what are the principles that unite us, how to overcome the ones that divide us, what strategies are needed to really push for policies and legislation that recognize and protect immigrant rights; and how immigrant communities can play a role alongside other communities and working people in the larger social and economic justice movement in the U.S.