Rights For All People

Most of our nations' undocumented immigrants would have preferred to immigrate through the proper legal channels.  But our current immigration system is so broken that it doesn't provide an adequate number of visas for the laborers that our country needs to operate our hotels, construction sites, office buildings, restaraunts, and much, much more.  Other immigrants wait up to 15 years to join family members in the United States!  Immigrants are a vital part of our community and economy and deserve a path to citizenship to fill vacant jobs and reunite with their families.  Click on the charts below to learn just how broken our system is!  Check out RAP's campaign for immigration reform to find out how you can help to fix the broken system!

RAP is part of the Reform Immigration for America Campaign, a united national effort with the mission to build support for workable comprehensive immigration reform based on our American values of fairness, equality, and opportunity. We believe that a workable comprehensive immigration reform should include:    
                              

• A rational and humane approach to the undocumented population. We must address the more than twelve million undocumented immigrants living in this country by creating a rigorous registration process that leads to lawful permanent resident status and eventual citizenship.

• Protect U.S. and immigrant workers. Immigration reform is a component of building real economic security, contributing to a shared prosperity agenda that maintains and improves wages and working conditions in the United States and in other countries. We must protect all workers’ rights, regardless of whether they were born in the United States or abroad, and any employment verification system should determine employment authorization accurately and efficiently while protecting workers and good-faith employers.


• Allocate sufficient visas to close unlawful migration channels. One of the great failures of our current system is that the level of legal immigration is set arbitrarily by Congress—as a product of political compromise. The allocation of employment visas to workers should be depoliticized and placed in the hands of an independent commission that can assess labor shortages and determine the number and characteristics of foreign workers to be admitted, with Congress's approval.


• Enhance our nation's security and safety. A sensible enforcement strategy will keep America safe, protect due process and human rights, make the most effective use of the tools and policies already available in a fair and reasonable manner, and be fiscally responsible. Such a strategy would prioritize enforcement actions to target genuine threats, violent individuals, unscrupulous employers; traffickers and drug smugglers, and those that might exploit the immigration system to do the country harm.


• Establish a strategic border enforcement policy that reflects American values. A border strategy that prioritizes the safety and security of border communities and consults with these communities in the process is the best way to ensure that our border policies protect our national security, while balancing enforcement with economic development and human and civil rights.
  

• Keep American families together. Our outdated family immigration channels, which keep close family members separated for decades, must be reformed to restore our commitment to promoting family unity.


• Promote immigrant integration. The federal government must help new immigrants learn our language and laws, ensure equal opportunity for immigrants to participate in programs and services, and support state and local governments’ efforts to help integrate these new Americans.


• Protect fundamental rights for all. Congress must restore basic civil liberties and reaffirm Constitutional protections for all individuals in this country and renew our commitment to core American values of fairness and justice.

American Friends Service Committee

http://www.afsc.org/immigrants-rights/learn/default.htm

American Immigration Lawyers Association

http://www.aila.org/

Migration Information Source

http://www.migrationinformation.org/

The Bell Policy Center

http://www.thebell.org/

The National Immigration Law Center

http://www.nilc.org/

The Pew Hispanic Center

http://pewhispanic.org/

The Urban Institute

Immigrants are hard-working, tax-paying members of our community who enrich the cultural fabric of our society and strengthen our nation.  Learn more about the myths and facts of US immigration below: 


http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/myths.html (English)

http://justiceforimmigrants.org/es/myths.html (Spanish)

Teachers at Bruce Randolph Elementary School go through the immigration timeline with RAP leaders and learn about the common threads in root causes of immigration and the exclusion and xenophobia that new arrivals have been met with throughout the ages.  Call 303-893-3500 to request a timeline presentation for your group or classroom! 

Immigration Timeline:

1492: COLUMBUS LANDS IN THE AMERICAS

1790: NATURALIZATION ACT: Only “free white” persons are eligible to become US Citizens

1848: MEXICAN AMERICAN WAR: Mexico cedes parts of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Colorado to the United States.

1866: CIVIL RIGHTS ACT: Grants citizenship to those born in the Unites States, except Native Americans

1880’s: Irish and Italian immigrants suffer discrimination

1882-1943: CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT: Denies citizenship to Chinese immigrants and bars their entry to the U.S.

1907: GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT: Forbids entry of Korean and Japanese laborers to the US

1917: All Asian immigration to the US is banned.

1918: PASSPORT ACT: Prevents arrival and departure to and from the US without documentation.

1921: QUOTA ACT: Establishes “national origins quota system” that favors European immigration.

1924: IMMIGRATION ACT: Establishes quota act that more heavily favors Northern and Western European immigration.

1929: US BORDER PATROL CREATED.

1942-1964: BRACERO PROGRAM: Millions of guest laborers from Mexico were brought to the US to fill labor shortages created by World War II. Many of these workers are still fighting for wages that are owed to them from this time.

1952: MCWARREN WALTER ACT: Eliminates racial barriers to citizenship and tightens immigration quotas.

1954: OPERATION WETBACK: More than 1 million Mexicans are deported.

1965: IMMIGRATION ACT: Eliminates race, religion, and nationality quotas for admission to the U.S. leads to increased immigration from Latin America and Asia.

1986: THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT: Gives amnesty to approx. 3million undocumented immigrants. Makes it illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers.

1996: THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION REFORM AND IMMIGRATION RESPONSIBILITY ACT & ANTI-TERRORISM AND EFFECTIVE DEATHPENALTY ACT: Allows deportation of immigrants for minor crimes. Monetary and medical assistance ends for most immigrants. Increases jailing of non-violent and non-criminal immigrants.

2001: THE PATRIOT ACT: Gives the federal government the power to detain suspected “terrorists” for unspecified amounts of time without legal representation.

2003: Department of Homeland Security takes over responsibility for immigration enforcement and security. The INS becomes ICE.