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Vol. 75/No. 6      February 14, 2011

 
Anti-immigrant bill is
‘step back on civil rights’
 
BY REBECCA WILLIAMSON
AND JOE SWANSON
 
LINCOLN, Nebraska—More than 300 people demonstrated on the steps of the state capitol here January 27 to oppose a proposed anti-immigrant bill. The Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act (LB 48) was introduced in early January by Charles Janssen, a state senator from Fremont.

Voters in the town of Fremont, with a population of 25,000, approved a similar anti-immigrant law in June 2010 making it a crime to harbor, hire, or rent to undocumented immigrants. The measure gives local police authorization to ask people for their immigration papers.

The Fremont law was supposed to take effect last July but the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund sued to get it thrown out, contending that the ordinance is discriminatory and contrary to state law.

Shortly after the suit was filed, the Fremont City Council voted to suspend the ordinance until the case is resolved. A hearing is set in federal court for March 15.

Like Arizona’s SB 1070 law, Nebraska’s LB 48 would require cops to check the immigration status of people they stop if they suspect they are undocumented. Anyone who can’t prove they are in the United States legally could be turned over to immigration authorities for deportation.

Close to half the participants at the capitol demonstration were students from Nebraska colleges and high schools. Jane Pearson, 19, a student at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln said, “Senator Janssen and others like him seem to want to divide people instead of what this rally is about which is unity, we need to build more such rallies and educate people against discrimination.”

“This is not a one-color thing, it’s everybody’s thing,” said Leslie Brown, 56, a home health-care worker. “They got us pointing at each other as ‘them’ being the problem. But Blacks and Latinos are in the same boat.”

Alexander Gibilisco, representing the Mexican American Student Association at the University of Nebraska here, told the rally, “We are human beings and want to be treated as such.”

“LB 48 would represent a green light to discrimination and a step backwards for civil rights in Nebraska,” said speaker Leroy Stokes, president of the Lincoln NAACP.

Others speaking against the anti-immigrant bill included representatives from the Native American Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, American G.I. Forum, the Anti-Defamation League, and local churches.  
 
 
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