Illegal Facing Deportation Mounts Hunger Strike at White House

Latin American Herald Tribune

Topics = Illegal Immigration, Mexican illegal, hunger strike, White House, President Obama, immigration reform, undocumented

December 2, 2009

Elvira Palomo

Wednesday, December 02 @ 13:43:10 EST by jean (674 reads)

By Elvira Palomo

WASHINGTON, DC – (EFE) Rodolfo Macias, a Mexican who has lived in the United States illegally for 20 years, is used to taking on challenges – the latest is a hunger strike in front of the White House urging President Barack Obama to deliver the immigration reform that he promised before the end of the year. 

Defying the cold on the fifth day of his hunger strike, Macias, who has a deportation order for Dec. 7, asked undocumented aliens to demand the longed-for reform together with family members who are already U.S. citizens.

“We the undocumented ... are not criminals but are workers who mostly left our native lands to find a better life,” he told Efe. 

The hunger strike was the climax of a “March for Justice” that set out Nov. 7 from San Antonio, Texas, to demand a just and fair immigration reform for the 12 million undocumented immigrants “living in the shadows here in the United States.” 

Macias also proposes organizing undocumented people so that they are counted in the 2010 Census. 

The Mexican said he would not move until he achieves his goals and has called on immigrants to meet every Thursday in front of the White House so that “we can have immigration reform in 2009.” 

“From here, in front of the White House, I’m going to begin organizing the first undocumented immigrants who are interested, to get ready administratively and have our papers ready for them to legalize us,” he said. 

He also has a business project for illegal aliens themselves to establish local schools for teaching English and providing legal counsel. 

“We have to show the U.S. that we are not ignorant people and that we are part of the solution,” the architect, who has traveled 1,600 miles (2,574 kilometers) to deliver his message to Obama, said. 

All his efforts, however, don’t seem enough to him, so he has begun a round of meetings in Washington with activists, religious leaders and people from the embassy and the consulate, to whom he is conveying his concerns and whose support he seeks. 

The Mexican has sent separate letters to Obama and the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, asking that “they find the best way to resolve this problem, which not only affects the United States but also Mexico, Central American and other countries.” 

He has faith in the letters, the marches and in God. “If we really believe in Him, He can give us a miracle in 2009 and influence President Barack Obama to promote immigration reform to the lawmakers in Congress.” 

Macias has a long history of protest. In 1989 he declared himself provisional president of the republic of Mexico in exile against President Carlos Salinas for the electoral fraud that gave the latter victory in the 1988 election. 

He then began a hunger strike in protest before U.N. headquarters and asked for asylum in the United States for himself and his five children. 

“We want to be integrated into this multiracial society because we are already part of it, we are linked with others by family, the economy or services. We the undocumented are part of the solution, we are not the problem,” Macias says.