GRASSROOTS GROUPS PLAN NATION-WIDE EFFORT TO WIN IMMIGRATION REFORM

PRESS CONFERENCE AT LA PRESS CLUB 4773 HOLLYWOOD
BLVD, LOS ANGELES, CA 90027

Thursday, March 29, 2007 @ 11 AM PST

Contacts:
Pablo Alvarado: 213.210.7124
Dolores Huerta: 510.435.6385
Angela Sanbrano: 323.371.7305
Peter Schey: 323.251.3223

A nation-wide coalition of grassroots organizations, faith-based groups, and labor organizations representing over 1,000 local civic and labor groups will initiate a coordinated campaign to promote national immigration reform with an emphasis on protecting the rights of children, full legalization for undocumented immigrants, enhanced labor protections for all workers, sufficient visas in the future to avoid a new expansion of the undocumented population, and restoration of judicial review of administrative decisions of federal immigration authorities.

The campaign will use a Unity Blueprint for Immigration Reform including detailed proposals for legislation developed over several months by grassroots and labor organizations around the country. The Unity Blueprint for Immigration Reform will be shared with Senate and House leaders on March 29, 2007.

The unityblueprint.org website will also be available shortly to serve as a resource on immigration reform from a grassroots and labor perspective. Among the supporters of this campaign are the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, American Federation of, Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, William C. Velasquez Institute, the Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), CARECEN Los Angeles, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Sweatshop Watch, Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC), the Dolores Huerta Foundation, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), Citizens for Border Solutions (Arizona), Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST), Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, National Alliance for Human Rights, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, National Employment Law Project, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, National Network Against Human Trafficking, Progressive Democrats of America, Salvadoran American National Network, Texas Civil Rights Project, United Association for Labor

Education, UCLA Downtown Labor Center, UCLA North American Integration and Development (NAID) Center, We Are America Coalition/Somos America Coalicion (Arizona), United Migrant Federations and Organizations in the USA, and other groups in over 30 states listed in full in the Unity Blueprint for Immigration Reform that will be distributed at the press conference.

Groups interested in endorsing the Unity Blueprint or offering comments, please email:

Peter Schey pschey@centerforhumanrights.org
Pablo Alvarado apabloalvarado@aol.com
Dolores Huerta ahuerta@doloreshuerta.org
Rosa Rosales presidentrosales@lulac.org
Angela Sanbrano angela.san1@verizon.net