URGENT!!!-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE !!!!

[josefro...@aol.com]

On Sunday 20, 2009

Press Release

Immigrant Community demands an apology from President Obama

 Members of the immigrant community in Little Village demand from president Obama an apology for calling them "Illegal". No human being is illegal!  On Sunday 20 at 10:00 am, at 3442 W. 26 Street, during Sunday mass, a service we will be offered including an offering of food harvested by immigrant workers to President Obama, to ask him for an apology to the immigrant community.  We demand a public apology and that a representative from president Obama's administration be present at 3442 W. 26 Street to receive the offering.  No Human Being is "Illegal". We are people with dignity and we demand respect. For more information please contact Fr. Jose Landaverde 773-968-4258

Rev. Father Jose S. Landaverde
Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Catholic
773-968-4258
Chicago, ILLinois 60623
josesla...@hotmail.com

The U.S. as a nation claims to adhere to ideas of freedoms, justice and liberty for all. It has broadcast to the world that is is a haven for immigrants and their families to work to better themselves and realize their dreams.

 

Before the ‘founders: conceived of this nation, there were many nations that worked this land. These nations were not included in the founding of the U.S.—instead their offers of food, hospitality and knowledge were taken and in exchange their families separated and killed, and the lands they honored=2 0were devastated and colonized. The languages they spoke were wiped out and a policy of one foreign langugage—English—was imposed on them along with a form of government that destoyed their ways of life.

 

At the same time, people were beaten and cpatured on the African continent and brought here as slaves to build this “New World.” People have been lured from all of the countries of the world to the U.S., even while the U.S. was pillaging and ravaging their homelands, only to find that what they were seeking was not here. Along with the indigenous ceremonies and spiritual celebrations, their spirituality was forced into submission to a religious deominion imposed from another place. They too were not included in the conception of a nation that accepted dividing a man into five parts and only letting three parts of him be counted ffor someone else’s profit.

 

Immigrant communities have had to fight for everything that they have=2 0gotten since then, even while our labor and sacrifices have built the U.S. A system that was unfair and ungrateful since it began then demands that members of these brave communities conform to this unjust system in order to know so-called “equality.” But there is no equality of justice when those who impose segregation, dispossession and subordination of entire communities of people are able to profit—regardless of their ethnicity or first-langugage—in order for a few who have conformed to the requirements of this unfair structure ascend.

 

As immigrants in the U.S. we have provided this country with food, people, money, services which have led to the construction of homes, businessses, schools, hospitals, parks and everything else that makes up the American Dream. In exchange, the U.S. government and its members have labelled us “illegal.” Our Congress has been complicit in a decade-long project to villify immigrants, including the descendants of their very first hosts on this land, and subject them to inhuman processes that are illegal even under the flawed laws of the U.S.

 

Both the Democrats and the Republicans have participated in the develoment of immigration practices that target for destruction the most powerful contributors to U.S. stability. The ICE raids devastate working communities and destabalize the U.S. economy. Detentions separate families and subject them to pain and anguish that de-values the so-called “Family Values” that the U.S. prides itself on.

 

The current E-Verify program is not only blatantly racist, but entirely obstructs the ability of U.S. workers and businesses to flourish, not to mention violates the most fundamental rights to privacy and respect called for in the Bill of Rights.

 

Every member of Congress has=2 0been a part of this program to jeopardize the U.S. Meanwhile, Our Lady of Gudalaupe Mission has been fighting along with immigrant families to preserve the promises that the U.S. government made to us when it first announced to the world what it stood for. We are what hold up the sky in this country and without us it all falls down.

 

We demand an apology from the Obama Admininstration and all members of the U.S. government’s branches and offices that have been a partner to this attack on the heart of America. We demand a public acceptance of responsibility for these policies, which starts with an immediate cessation:

 

Stop the raids

Stop the deportations

Stop the E-Verify Program

 

Release all of those currently detained or pending deportation until such time as a fair immigration policy can be created by and with those who are impacted by these policies.

 

This is just the first step to justice for the U.S. government. Without it, without respect for what we do to keep this country alive—the the U.S. government disposses itself of its greatest asset and divorces itself from whatever legacy gives it legitimacy. All those who have been a part of this corruption owe us for all that they have taken. It is time to pay us back. We ask Obama and members of Congress to consider what is in this basket and then we ask, “What is your offering?”