For Immediate Release: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Contact:
For English language Media:
Donna De La Cruz, [email protected], 202-339-9331, 202-441-3798 (cell)
For Spanish language Media:
Ricardo Ramírez, [email protected] 202-339-9371, (202) 905-1738 (cell)

Sen. Menendez Joins Call to Explain Immigration Bill

(WASHINGTON)—Last night, over 20,000 people called in for a community meeting hosted by Reform Immigration FOR America, the digital arm of the Alliance for Citizenship, to hear from the leading advocates for comprehensive immigration reform.  Tens of thousands more families listened to the call on the radio that was broadcast on multiple Spanish-language radio stations.

Sen. Bob Menendez, a critical member of the Gang of Eight; Eliseo Medina, Secretary Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union; Kica Matos, Director of Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice for the Center for Community Change; Angelica Salas, Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA); and families who have been torn apart because of our broken immigration system spoke about the historic step we have taken toward humane policy reform.

The speakers commended the bipartisan Gang of Eight for producing a bill that is strong and balanced.  It will fix our broken immigration system once and for all.  We are closer than ever to making history. But the bill is far from perfect and our work is far from over.

“The community call tonight was a strong reminder that we will be watching and weighing in with our full political force,” Salas said. “The introduction of the Senate’s immigration bill is a historic step toward humane policy reform. The draft legislation is a good start.”

“Our fight for comprehensive, compassionate immigration reform is about keeping families together and providing a clear and direct path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented Americans in this country,” Matos said.

This past election cycle demonstrated our enormous and growing political power. We will harness that power – on the streets, online, through our massive phone banking programs, historic voter engagement and lobbying by immigrant families themselves – to improve this bill and move immigration reform forward now. We look forward to working with elected officials on common sense solutions and we will hold those accountable who stand in the way of families’ dreams.

###