Town Hall Meeting on Immigration Reform

The debates over health care reform are dominating the headlines nationally. Locally, there are two related events that are drawing plenty of attention. Republican Senators John McCain, Richard Burr, and Mitch McConnell held an invitation-only forum on health care this morning at Levine Children's Hospital. And this afternoon, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is holding a round-table discussion on health care at Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill. But there's another event going on today that deserves some attention, and it's an issue that seems to have gotten buried over the last few months.

Below is info I received in a press release this morning about a town hall meeting being held on immigration reform this evening.

Immigrants and Civil Rights Leaders to Call on Congress to Enact Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Stories of Rights Violations and Family Division to Provide Context for Urgent Call for Reform

WHAT: Town Hall Meeting and Call to Action
WHEN: Tuesday, September 1 at 6 p.m.
WHERE: Sugar Creek Library, 4045 N. Tryon St.
WHO: ACORN Charlotte, American Friends Service Committee, Catholic Committee of the South, Communities for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Grassroots Leadership, Helping Empower Local People, Latin American Coalition, Reform Immigration For America

Charlotte, NC – On Tuesday, September 1, immigrant and civil rights leaders will gather together at the Sugar Creek Branch Library to urge congressional leadership to support fair and humane immigration reform this year.

At the event, local immigrant students, parents, businesspeople and civic leaders will provide personal stories about how the current immigration system is devastating communities and will highlight the benefits of reform to all low-income workers in the state.

The battle for immigrant rights occurs in the state that birthed the lunch counter sit-ins in 1960, launched the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and challenged continuing school segregation after the Brown decision. Yet, it is exactly the challenge to segregation in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System brought by six-year-old James Swann and nine other families that underscores the work yet to be done. After the Swann decision, which shepherded in a twenty-five plus year experiment in school busing, was overturned, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system returned to levels of racial segregation existing in the 1960s.

Today, African-Americans are joined in the unfinished business for civil rights by immigrants, whose battle for reform has sparked a dramatic increase in the number of hate groups operating in the United States and a 40% spike between 2004 and 2007 in hate crimes committed against Hispanics.

The Charlotte town hall meeting is part of a series of actions across North Carolina that cumulatively launch a statewide effort to convince members of Congress to support a fair and humane immigration reform.

For more info, visit www.reformimmigrationforamerica.org.