Posted by Staff on October 21, 2009

By Leah Valencia, University of New Mexico- Talk Radio News Service

Over 100 clergy members joined Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) Wednesday to urge Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, calling the current policies discriminatory.

“For all we are doing for this nation, health care reform, economic redevelopment … for those that are here undocumented, it means nothing,” Clarke said.

Clark said that although Latinos are often at the forefront of demanding immigration reform, the reality of immigration consists of people from a diverse background and the bureaucracy of immigration needs be stratified to include all of them.

“There are faces we don’t often associate with the challenge of being undocumented,” she said. “But that community is really suffering with lack of mobility, and fear of how this country is dealing with enforcement.”

Clarke said there is no consensus in Congress on immigration reform, but she plans to push to have it addressed this year.

“There are people who have been here and have lived in this nation longer than they have in their nation of origin and have basically become American in their contribution,” she said. “Those people deserve the opportunity to be heard and to have their status adjusted.”

Clarke represents a large immigrant community in Brooklyn, New York.