While a divided Congress wrangled over how to solve the immigration crisis, advocates of illegal aliens yesterday denounced all of the major legislation under consideration, along with President Bush's proposals, demanding in protests throughout California that they be given full citizenship now. Protest organizer Luis Magaña in Stockton, Calif., condemned the president's guest-worker proposal, contending a similar program run from 1942 to 1964 was abusive, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
"If a program doesn't give us the full rights accorded other workers in the United States, then we're against it," he told the paper. "They haven't spelled out the details and there's no discussion with the people who will be affected."
Activists in several California cities held news conferences yesterday to denounce legislation under consideration in the Senate and passed by the House and to oppose the president's call to deploy National Guard troops on the border.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office in San Francisco was the site of one rally that featured signs and banners reading "Do Not Militarize the Border" and "No Human Being Is Illegal."
The protesters said they would continue until senators hear their message.
The Mexican government, meanwhile, warned it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops detain illegals on the border.
"If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people ... we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates," Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said in an interview with a Mexico City radio station, according to the Associated Press.
President Bush addressing the nation Monday night
Yesterday, President Bush's plan for a "comprehensive approach" to immigration, outlined in a primetime speech Monday night, took one step forward as the Senate rejected a call to secure the nation's borders before addressing other immigration-related concerns.
In a 55-40 vote, the Senate dismissed an amendment by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga, to bar the federal government from altering the status of any illegal immigrant until every border security provision in the immigration bill had been implemented and the Homeland Security secretary certified the border is secure.
As WorldNetDaily reported last month, images of seas of illegal aliens marching in cities across the U.S. have had a far greater negative than positive impact on the foreigners' cause, according to a poll.
A Zogby survey of nearly 8,000 people showed coast-to-coast protests against immigration proposals in Congress – particularly to make it a federal felony to be an illegal worker in the U.S. – have not persuaded a majority of likely American voters.
Asked whether the protests have made likely voters more or less sympathetic toward unlawful workers, 61 percent said they're less likely to be sympathetic to the plight of illegals as a result of the protests, while only 32 percent of respondents said they're now more sympathetic.
