GRANDVIEW, Wash. — The need for immigration reform topped the list
of concerns that Latino leaders brought Thursday to Sen. Patty Murray,
D-Wash., who held an hour-long “listening” session at a senior center in
the Lower Yakima Valley.
“These laws are ripping families apart,” said Marisol Avila of
Consejo Eastern Washington, a counseling and referral service. “We have
families that can’t be families.”
Avila and others said adult children are afraid to travel back to
Mexico when a parent dies, out of fear they won’t get back into the
United States. Spouses detained by immigration authorities because of
their illegal status are having to leave their young children with older
siblings or relatives.
And laws governing the path to citizenship are so slow to churn that
people have been waiting more than 20 years for their chance to become
legal.
Avila was one of 13 Latino community leaders, educators and business
representatives invited to meet with Murray at the Grandview Senior
Center. While there was no specific agenda, Murray acknowledged at the
beginning the importance of Latinos as a constituency.
“You are very important to me. This is a chance for you to make sure I
know what’s on your minds,” she said.
Several speakers, including Jesus Hernandez of Wenatchee and Ricardo
Garcia, founder of Radio KDNA in Granger, urged Murray to work on
passing the Dream Act, legislation that would allow undocumented young
people to become eligible for citizenship in exchange for a mandatory
two years in higher education or military service.
“A top priority should be passage of the Dream Act. It’s a
no-brainer,” said Hernandez, who is a member of the Wenatchee School
Board. He said the United States needs to guarantee an educated,
domestic workforce instead of relying on imported skilled workers.
But the conversation kept returning to immigration as several
speakers told stories of families separated and living in fear.
“Whenever there is a raid, everything in life takes on underlying
sense of fear. The fear is there and it never goes away,” said Carol
Folsom-Hill, who runs La Casa Hogar, a nonprofit organization in Yakima
that helps more than 400 immigrant women gain their footing in work and
home life.
Murray, who is expected to seek her fifth Senate term next year, said
she heard the message.
“It’s difficult, hard and a tough balance,” Murray said of passing
immigration reform. “We’ve tried it twice in the Senate in the last
three years but you’ve given me good reason to go back and say we have
to try again.”
Murray said Congress is focused on job creation and health care at
the moment. She predicted that the Senate likely would be able to pass a
bill before the end of the year but said Republicans are trying to
block it with procedural tactics.
“They are dragging things out incessantly,” she said.
Tomás Ybarra, vice president of instruction and student services at
Yakima Valley Community College, asked Murray to fight for more funding
for community colleges, saying they are facing a convergence of
increased demand and declining resources.
“I am fearful this will result in a denial of opportunity for our
students,” Ybarra said.
While several speakers asked for help to combat gangs, Wapato Police
Chief Richard Sanchez said the focus on gangs is misleading.
“We have everyone scared that every Hispanic child in the community
is a gang member. That’s the media. We’re making it too big a deal,”
Sanchez said.
Murray, who recently secured $500,000 for an anti-gang initiative in
Yakima County, agreed that if all that adults talk about is gangs, kids
will think that’s their only option in life. She encouraged all the
Latino leaders to be role models.
“You need to tell students you have a master’s degree, Marisol,” she
said to Avila, who recounted recently helping a relative pick apples.
Between the two of them, they earned $22 for one bin and it took two and
a half hours.
Health-care administrator Vickie Ybarra of the Yakima Farm Workers
Clinic, who was in the audience, asked Murray to consider the state’s
Basic Health Plan a model for offering health care insurance to the
working poor.
Hernandez of Wenatchee, who is executive director of Community Choice
PHCO, a health-care network, said he is discouraged by Republican
health-care proposals that would deny care of children of undocumented
immigrants.
“It’s more than frustrating that we see bills negate health care
benefits for children because their parents may be undocumented. It’s
inhumane.”
– Yakima Herald Republic
English 
Spanish