Congressmembers Visiting Redwood City Call For Immigration Reform

Hundreds of Peninsula residents and advocates for immigrants rights welcomed Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez to Redwood City and showed their support during his speech at recommending immigration policy reform.

Gutierrez (D-IL.) is touring the greater Bay Area and attending events sponsored by community members whose lives are affected by U.S. immigration policy they believe is unjust. He was accompanied during his speech by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.). The two have joined forces to apply political pressure on President Barack Obama, and are hoping to relax some of the deportation laws imposed on immigrants.

"The system is messed up, and needs change," said Gutierrez, who spoke for nearly 30 minutes to a predominantly Hispanic audience. Much of his speech to the crowd fluctuated back and forth between English and Spanish.

Gutierrez paid special attention to the family members of second generation immigrants attending college in the U.S., and stated his belief that those people should be allowed amnesty from deportation.

Gutierrez has been a staunch advocate for immigration reform, and is now requesting Obama make an executive order to halt deportation of Hispanic immigrants who abide by the nation's laws.

He said there is no discretion in immigration policy between criminals, and the families who have come to the U.S. illegally with the intention of making a better life, a chance that is not afforded to them in their native country.

Nearly 1,100 people are deported daily, and more than 400,000 immigrants were forcefully returned to their native country last year, according to Gutierrez.

Both Gutierrez and Eshoo were part of the House of Representatives that approved of the ill-fated Dream Act in December, which would have allowed illegal immigrants the opportunity to stay in the country so long as they pursued a secondary education. The bill eventually failed to gain the necessary support in the Senate.

Since its failure, California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Fienstein wrote Obama a letter earlier this month, requesting he offer amnesty from deportation for those who would have found safety under the cover of the Dream Act, had it become law.

Gutierrez said he, Eshoo and other fellow members of the Congress will meet with Obama next week, and will request he take a similar action to what is laid out in Boxer and Feinstein's letter.

"We will tell him not to separate dreamers from their moms and dads," said Gutierrez, to a roaring round of applause.

Eshoo, who introduced Gutierrez, shared many of the same sentiments.

"We can change a very wrong policy in the United States of America," she said, as her words were delivered in Spanish through a translator.

Eshoo said immigration policy reform is important because the U.S. is comprised of immigrants from across the world.

She said the policy is especially important to her since she is the daughter of immigrant parents.

The two Congress members were invited to speak by Margarita Villa of Redwood City. Villa, an immigrant, spoke through a translator to the crowd about the difficulties of raising a family under the constant threat of deportation.

She pleaded for immigration reform, in order to spare thousands of others like her from being subjected to the same stress she has lived through.