Article: Immigration/Family Unity
Source: Focus Daily News

http://focusdailynews.com/family-unity-outreach-tour-arrives-p1182-1.htm

Family Unity Outreach Tour Arrives

By JOSHUA C. JOHNSON

Focus Daily News

DALLAS—Recently, Texas's faith-based communities joined a national effort— spanning 17 major U.S. cities—to document the alleged harm caused to citizens across our nation in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform.

In an nationwide outreach tour, U.S. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL),Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Immigration Task Force, will be joined by Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (DTX), and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Texas' religious community to spearhead the "Family Unity" outreach tour.

Over a five-week period, this effort involves community meetings, prayer vigils and town-hall meetings. At each event, U.S. citizens share testimony as to how their families have been or risk being torn apart by a broken immigration system.

U.S. citizens whose families have been affected were available at each event to share their specific stories with press. During such touching stories one teenager spoke of how she helplessly watched through her bedroom window as immigration officials came and took her mother away.

"No city in America has been spared the devastating effects of our broken system," said Rep. Gutierrez. "As a nation —as citizens— we cannot wait any longer for fair and just immigration reform. Across this country, parents and children, husbands and wives are being torn apart by a system that values quotas over family values and which undermines our economic security in a time of crisis. Through this effort, Texans are standing up for real, lasting change."

There were also those in opposition to the rally that set up a picket line across from the Jesucristo es mi Refugio Church on 2929 S. Westmoreland Rd.

The Family Unity outreach tour has already visited Providence, RI, Atlanta, GA, Albuquerque, NM, Ontario, CA, San Francisco, CA and Phoenix AZ, where nearly 8,000 individuals have filled their community churches to capacity. They came forward to demonstrate the vast numbers of American families—from all political backgrounds—who demand change from a legal system that undermines family values.

Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, Rep. Xavier Becerra, Rep. Grace Napolitano, and Rep. Linda Sanchez of California simultaneously held a Family Unity event in Los Angeles.