What's Next for Immigration Reformers

As hundreds of protesters stopped traffic and police handcuffed 41 immigrant-rights leaders outside the Capitol, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) promised, "What is happening today is going to be repeated around the country."

The same coalition of immigration, labor, faith, community and progressive activists that came together for Thursday's act of civil disobedience will be there to greet members of Congress returning home this August recess, continuing to build support for a comprehensive bill that creates a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

“That will be a combination of turning people out at actions in those districts, but also a much larger number of people with call-ins, emails and letters, to those particularly Republican members of Congress, in broad enough coalitions that we expect to move them,” CWA President Larry Cohen told reporters on a call. Cohen was among those arrested while protesting the House GOP’s inability to pass a bill that contains a pathway to citizenship and keeps families together.

He added, “The purpose of yesterday was not to just symbolic. It was to say in the next two months we’re going to get a vote on the House floor.”

The pressure is on. Poll after poll shows that a majority of the Americans – including many Republicans – want Congress to fix the country’s broken immigration system. They’re demanding a balanced approach to reform and strongly support a path to citizenship.

“More and more environmental groups are coming to the conclusion that immigration reform and specifically a path to citizenship are crucial to the environment,” said Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford, who was also arrested during the demonstration.

Radford said, “In many situations, undocumented workers are exposed to the most toxic chemicals, toxic work environments and unsafe work environments. That any American or human being doesn’t have the right or full rights to stand up and say that they’re being poisoned, that their workplace is unsafe or that their communities are unsafe is fundamentally an environmental problem.”

The demonstration outside the Capitol was proof how strong this broad-based movement has grown.

“That was a symbol of the new unity that is forming among progressives across the country – ending the kind of silos of just doing our work,” said Cohen. “The Democracy Initiative is one of the very concrete examples of building structure around that, rather than starting over all the time.”

Earlier this year, CWA, Greenpeace, Sierra Club and NAACP launched The Democracy Initiative to reform the broken Senate rules, curb the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics and stop the attacks on voter rights.

Cohen said Initiative’s work is “about to accelerate in September” and that joint work has been “fueled by the progress” of confirming a number of the president’s nominees, from the National Labor Relations Board to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Being handcuffed and detained for hours certainly gave these progressive leaders time to talk and plan.

“The many hours we all spent together helped firm up a lot of these coalitions – because we were all there together,” Cohen said.