Immigration-reform panel to discuss legislative solutions
MAURA POSSLEY
www.bradenton.com
Mar 5, 2007
Local immigration-reform advocates are seeking to find the center in the national debate over immigration that they hope will be resurrected this spring.
"Finding the Middle Ground: Immigration Legislation" will be held 1-3 p.m. Saturday to discuss and answer questions on immigration reform. The forum will be at the Sudakoff Center at New College of Florida, 5800 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota.
"We want our leaders to enact something, to actually get something through," said Jose Manuel Godinez Samperio, co-chair of the New College Democrats club. "We're hoping to revive the issue."
The first hour of the forum will feature presentations by speakers from various organizations in Sarasota and Manatee counties. The last half of the event will be open for questions.
Speakers include state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, D-Sarasota; the Rev. Celestino Gutierrez, pastor of St. Jude Catholic Church, in Sarasota; Luz Corcuera, chair of the Latino Community Network and director of the Healthy Start Coalition of Manatee County; and Jim Delgado, member of the Mexican Council of Florida and the Gulf Coast Latin Chamber of Commerce.
Gutierrez will highlight social implications of immigration in the United States, Corcuera will speak on health care-related issues, Delgado on business impacts and Fitzgerald will give a brief history of immigration-reform legislation.
Some of what Gutierrez will speak on Saturday, he said, is the limbo in which illegal immigrants find themselves while in this country.
"They don't feel completely accepted in this society," Gutierrez said. "They have to find a solution according to the laws, not against the laws."
Samperio's hope is that the discussion will educate the public and persuade people to call or write their representatives to push reforms.
