UFW Pres. Rodriguez after landing on Air Force One:
Furious opposition also met Lincoln freeing the slaves and Truman desegregating the U.S. military
UFW partners with MoveOn.org as Cesar Chavez’s widow
asks people across America to thank the President
LAS VEGAS, NEV.—After arriving on Air Force One in Las Vegas with President Obama, United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez compared furious Republican reaction against the White House announcement of administrative relief on immigration to stern resistance against President Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and President Truman’s 1948 executive order banning racial bias in the Armed Services.
“Frenzied resistance by Republicans to President Obama’s executive order freeing millions of law-abiding, tax-paying immigrants from fear and exploitation reminds us of executive actions by President Lincoln freeing the slaves and by President Truman integrating the military,” Rodriguez said. “Most Latinos see President Obama offering temporary administrative relief for millions of long-suffering immigrants—including at least 250,000 farm workers—on a par with earlier applications of executive powers by Presidents Lincoln and Truman. Condemnations of those past uses of administrative authority were proven wrong. Today’s opposition to President Obama also puts the GOP on the wrong side of history.”
Rodriguez noted that the President’s action is only a first step: “Just as Congress had to pass a series of civil rights laws after President Truman’s executive order integrating the Armed Services to reduce legal discrimination, so Congress needs to pass comprehensive immigration reform to finish the work President Obama has begun.”
In other late developments:
—Meeting personally with the President today in Las Vegas was Ana Rosa Romero, a 15-year professional farm worker, a single mother of eight and a member of the worker committee that helped hammer out a union contract at Fresno-based Gerawan Farming Inc. Also at the event in addition to Rodriguez were Paul F. Chavez, Chavez’s son and president of the Cesar Chavez Foundation, and UFW National Vice President Diana Tellefson Torres.
—The UFW partnered with MoveOn.org on a petition that went to MoveOn members across the country from Helen F. Chavez, widow of Cesar Chavez, asking them to thank President Obama for his executive order on immigration relief. Mrs. Chavez, recalled paying respects at her husband’s gravesite when Mr. Obama dedicated the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument at Keene, Calif. on Oct. 8, 2012. As they walked away, “with the President holding my arm, I asked, ‘Mr. President, will you promise you will do something on immigration reform?’ ‘Yes, Mrs. Chavez, I promise I will,’” he replied. On Thursday night, as soon as White House speech ended, Helen Chavez wrote that “President Obama kept his promise to me and to the American people…President Obama did the right thing on immigration. Please join me in thanking him for his leadership.”
The Helen Chavez petition is resonating very well, including among MovOn members without a history of activism on immigration matters, according to MovOn.
—After the UFW’s Rodriguez met with President Obama at the White House on Wednesday, the union conservatively estimated that based on the requirements the President laid out at least 250,000 farm workers, including at least 125,000 from California, would qualify for administrative relief under Mr. Obama’s executive order.
###