CAIR-LA Rep Ameena Qazi speaks at community town hall on the need for comprehensive immigration reform.
(Apr 24, 2013 – Anaheim, CA)
Yesterday, CAIR-LA’s lead staff attorney and Deputy Executive Director Ameena Qazi participated in a community townhall on immigration reform hosted and live streamed by Southern California radio station KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, and three of its local, sister stations. Today, the event will be transmitted live by Radio Bilingue along with 100 other affiliate stations.
The forum aimed to uplift the voices of residents from the 39th congressional district, which encompasses Fullerton, Brea, Yorba Linda, La Habra, Rowland Heights, Walnut and Chino Hills. Qazi joined a panel of representatives from more than a dozen civil liberties and immigrant advocacy groups, and collectively expressed the need for district Rep. Ed Royce (R) to support comprehensive immigration reform.
Royce has yet to publicly state his position on the current senate proposal. For Latinos and Asians who make up more than 40% of his constituency, immigration reform is an issue of high interest.
In her statement, Qazi said that comprehensive immigration reform is pertinent to the Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities as many members are part of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. There is no exact count as many of them don’t disclose their status. Moreover, the advent of the revolutions across the Arab world has increased the numbers of Arabs, especially from Syria and Egypt, emigrating to the U.S.
Qazi also expressed that although an overhaul of the immigration system is needed, the current senate proposal fails to prohibit profiling based on religion or national origin and includes troubling exemptions in cases of national security and border protection.
ACTION ALERT: Immigration Reform should ban all forms of Profiling
The bipartisan Senate proposal offers a 13-year path to citizenship that would require applicants to pay fines and taxes, learn English, undergo background checks and wait until additional border security initiatives have been enforced.
Royce was invited but declined to attend.