By Courtney Dentch
Members of DRUM, a non-profit working against the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, invited various immigrants rights organizations to join them at the corner of 72nd Street and Broadway Saturday afternoon to speak against government immigration policies.”Americans gave more importance to their cats and dogs than to refugees,” one DRUM member, Sarah, read from an essay written by two of the group's interns. “The people we are talking about came here to seek a better life. There is no such thing as an illegal human being.”About 100 people listened as various speakers blasted both the Republican Bush administration and the Democratic Party for their immigration policies. The demonstration wrapped up with a march as protesters shouted, “Open up the borders, shock the DHS,” referring to the Department of Homeland Security, and “Get Bush out.”DRUM had difficulty obtaining the permits it needed to hold the protest on the street corner and to lead a march up 73rd Street and down 37th Avenue, said Monami Maulik, one of the organizers.”We got the runaround between the 115th Precinct and Community Board 3,” she said. Each one was telling us to go to the other. Until the very last minute we didn't know what was going on.”But the permits were granted and the protesters were set to proclaim their views from the back of a flatbed truck parked on Broadway when the skies opened up. The protest was moved into the Shaheen restaurant and later outside again for the march.DRUM members read messages from people who have spent months and even years in immigration detention centers.”We should make this election about the immigrants who have not benefited from this government,” Rishi Singh read. “It is important to get Bush out of the White House but also to let the Democratic Party know that deporting people is wrong. Stop breaking families apart.”Others targeted the federal government on other issues. Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, a Woodside-based group, is working to build a school and a health clinic to fill gaps it says the country's leaders have ignored in terms of immigrants' education and medical care, said John Choe, of Nodutdol.”Health care is a basic human right that our government, the people in the White House, should provide for us,” he said.Rakeeb, a DRUM intern who did not want to give his full name, took the stage to tell the story of his aunt, a Bengali refugee who moved to New Jersey to be with her family in 1993. Four years later immigration officials caught up with her and ordered her deportation. She has been in a detention center for years, away from her family, Rakeeb said.”Hundreds have been separated from their loved ones,” he said. Who's going to take care of them? Bush?” Esperanza del Barrio was also on hand to talk about city issues, including its work with immigrant street vendors in East Harlem and Brooklyn. The group is organizing the vendors to fight a city policy that would require them to include their immigration status to get the required licence, said member Oscar Parades.”Being a small business doesn't require any license,” he said. “We want to make them remove the immigrant documents to provide street vendors licences.”Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
