Hispanic Immigration: For and Against

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) is a privately and publicly funded movement that believes Los Angeles is a city that has historically always been ethnically diverse. Because of this, CHIRLA is constantly fighting for the rights of all immigrants within the area, suggesting that they have as much a right to live in LA as American born people do.

CHIRLA was formed in 1986 to advance the human and civil rights of immigrants and refugees in Los Angeles; promote harmonious multi-ethnic and multi-racial human relations; and through coalition-building, advocacy, community education and organizing, empower immigrants and their allies to build a more just society.

The website provides links explaining what they do within the campaign, including education, advocating and organising. For example, CHIRLA is constantly working with the community in order to educate, and one of the ways they try to achieve this is with projects such as Wise Up! This project states its mission as achieving "a society in which every individual is respected regardless of his or her cultural background, ethnicity, race and legal status". This thus reinforces the message that America is supposed to be the land of the free, and this includes those who cross the border from Mexico. In order to help, the website posts useful facts on immigration laws as well as making people aware of the rights they have, further helping to educate the community.

Under the subheading "What You Can Do" are the options to donate, take action and become a member of the team by looking at internships and employment. This thus helps to stress the reliance the CHIRLA has upon donations and public support in order to achieve their goals.

In opposition to organisations such as CHIRLA is the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIR) which states in its tagline "advocating for the rights of future generations of Americans". However, CAIR makes it clear within their mission statement that the future generation of Americans does not include immigrants willing to enter the USA or those illegals that are currently in the USA.

It is said "America is a nation of immigrants." But humanity has been migrating for 10,000 years. All countries are nations of immigrants. At approximately 300 million people, America is now full, and it makes no sense to double U.S. population once again.

Here, CAIR dismisses the newness of America and disregards the slaughter of Natives when the settlers first arrived by suggesting that the people living in America today are the ones with the rights to the country. It does not matter to CAIR that they are a nation of immigrants, but now they are calling for a drastic halt on anymore entering.

CAIR supports the principles of the ASAP! Alliance for Stabilizing America's Population, formulated in Colorado in 1997. This action plan consists of the following points:

1. Immigration Moratorium

2. No More Amnesties

3. Enforce Immigration Laws

4. No Citizenship for Illegal Aliens' Offspring

CAIR is unapologetic in its views on immigration reform that would see the upheaval of thousands of families showing themselves to be unsympathetic towards immigrants. They state that they are a non-racist organisation and yet they are only concerned by post 1970s immigration, much of which is based on hispanic numbers. They use statistics from surveys either conducted almost 10 years previously, or from unknown sources, thus not giving much credit to their so called facts.

In conclusion, I feel that the CHIRLA is more convincing with its arguments, overall supporting equality for all. In comparison to CAIR, it takes a much softer approach, whereas CAIR appears to have goals that are brash and hard to conceive as being achievable. Interestingly, CAIR is based in a state where they are possibly experiencing a diluted stream of immigrants entering, whereas CHIRLA is more focused on California, where the concentration of foreign born Americans is high, and there are now second and third generations living there. CHIRLA seems to advocate the community, regardless of background, whereas CAIR preaches a message of separation in its most destructive forms of potentially tearing apart families.