Last night I attended a rally in support of comprehensive immigration reform. I’ve written an article for the UA newspaper The Arkansas Traveler, which you can find here. The event happened in Springdale (though it’s original plan was snowed out of the Union Ballroom) at the Jones Center for Families. Northwest Arkansas has a large Hispanic population–both legal and illegal–so it is an important issue surrounding our community. I’ll let you read the article for more information on it and to see more photos, but here are a few. You can find the rest here on Flickr.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’d like to have a copy of the article on my servers in case the Traveler goes down. So here it is. But go to the article anyway!
In Pictures: Community Gathers for Immigration Reform Rally
By: Stephen Ironside
About 200 people gathered at the Jones Center for Families in Springdale on Wednesday evening to show their support for comprehensive immigration reform. Both Hispanic and Caucasian community members gathered at the March Forward FOR Arkansas forum for the passage of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act), which would increase access to education for the children of illegal immigrants and end family separation through detention and deportation laws, and for the critical need to address what organizers deemed our country’s “broken immigration system.” Introduced to Congress in March 2009, the act would provide a way for immigrants who have grown up in the United States–and graduated from a U.S. high school–to go to college and get scholarships.
Under the proposed DREAM Act, immigrants may qualify in part by meeting the following requirements:
- Must be between the ages of 12 and 35 at the time the Law is enacted
- Must have arrived in the United States before the age of 16
- Must have resided continuously in the United States for a least five (5) consecutive years since the date of their arrival
- Must have graduated from a U.S. High School, or obtained a General Education Diploma GED
- Must have “Good moral character”
Speakers included: Emily Ironside, University of Arkansas Foreign Student Advisor; Stephen Coger, a bilingual UA alumnus who taught English in Argentina after graduating in 2008; Greg Leding, running to represent District 92 of Fayetteville in the Arkansas House of Representatives; Dr. Diana Gonzales Worthen, professor in the UA College of Education and Health Professions and director of Project Teach Them All; David Whitaker, running for U.S. Congress from Arkansas’ third district; various local Hispanic students and community members.
The speakers stressed that immigration reform is not just good for immigrants, but rather that it is good for America
