López is the president of the California-based Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) and executive director of the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana. Both groups helped organize the mass demonstrations on March 25 and May 1 in Los Angeles demanding legalization of all undocumented immigrants. López has been touring several cities to build the Chicago conference and other upcoming immigrant rights activities.

Addressing a public meeting of about 50 people in Washington Heights, an Upper Manhattan neighborhood with a large Dominican-born population, López said, “Our demand must be: Kill both bills, HR 4437 and S2611.” He noted that HR 4437, approved by the House of Representatives last December and known as the Sensenbrenner bill, would criminalize 12 million undocumented workers and those assisting them.

“We defeated the Sensenbrenner bill through mobilizations of millions in the streets,” López said. “But we were betrayed by Democrats, who made a deal with Republicans to allow S2611, the Hagel-Martínez bill, to pass” in the Senate. He said S2611 provides for the legalization of some, but with many onerous restrictions and police “enforcement” measures. “That ‘path to citizenship’ is a path to purgatory,” with people waiting many years before they can obtain legal status, he said.

“We want unconditional legalization now,” López stated, adding that defenders of immigrants’ rights should also oppose employer sanctions, guest worker programs, deportations, and the militarization of the border.

Pointing to actions such as those on May 1, López noted, “Immigrants are teaching other workers to fight, by mobilizing in their millions as never before. Never before had we seen millions marching across the country like this.”

The legalization fight is not only in the interests of the foreign-born, he said. “What’s good for immigrants is good for all workers. The immigrant movement is fundamentally a working-class movement.” Unions have been and need to be involved in it, the MAPA leader said.

López emphasized that the Chicago conference will “unite as many people as possible, not exclude anyone, in order to discuss a strategy, a plan of action” for the coming months.

Following the New York meetings, López traveled to Boston, where he spoke at a meeting titled “No Human Being is Illegal! Next Steps in the Struggle for Justice and Dignity for All.” That event drew 50 people.

Ted Leonard in Boston contributed to this article.
 
 
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