Greetings!
March 10th Coalition
Chicago Declaration

Dear MAPISTAS and Friends:
If you are following the current national immigration debate over immigration reform, you will want to review the documents that I have attached in this MAPANewsletter. These documents were endorsed by the Los Angeles-based March 25th Coalition as identical to the views of the coalition.

These documents were prepared by the March 10th Coalition of Chicago, Illinois, which took the lead in organizing the mass marches to defeat H.R.4437, and convene various regional and national conferences to define the national strategy to pursue major immigration reform that is fair and humane to all immigrants.

For those of you are will be attending the Western Regional Immigration Conference on June 17, 2006 in Los Angeles, you will especially want to read these documents. They are the basis for all discussions for the conference. They list the basic points of unity, further explanation on the same, and explain why most of the regional and national immigration coalitions are opposed to the Senate’s immigration legislation version – S.2611 (Hagel-Martinez), which will meet the Sensenbrenner version – H.R.4437 – in the congressional conference committee soon.

The basic points of unity include the following:
Unconditional legalization for ALL
No to H.R.4437 and similar senate version legislation
No to the criminalization of immigrants
No to border walls and militarization of the border
No to guest-worker programs
No to employer sanctions
Yes to expedited family reunification visas
Yes to the protection of labor and civil rights, and civil liberties
No to deportations
No to the use of local law enforcement for immigration purposes.

Please join me in reading the March 10th Coalition Declaration on Immigration Reform and register for the Western Regional Immigration Conference.
You may register at: www.march25coalition.org.