AFT President Randi Weingarten’s remarks at the Concert and March for Immigrant Dignity and Respect
Good afternoon. I'm Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a union that proudly supports dignity and respect for all immigrants.
The United States has been shaped by immigrants—by those who founded the first colonies and those who have followed ever since. By my grandparents, who sacrificed so much to make this country their adopted homeland and worked so hard once they got here. By so many others.
Immigration is part of the American DNA, our vibrancy and our strength.
But opponents of immigration reform want to pull up the ladder. They want immigrants to remain vulnerable to mistreatment by unscrupulous employers. They want immigrants to be denied opportunities to fully contribute to society. They want this shadow economy to continue to drive down wages for all workers.
They want to shut down the government rather than opening up the doors of opportunity.
And they don’t care about the very real human toll of our broken immigration system. Let me share a story from an AFT teacher.
Montserrat Garibay is an early childhood educator in Austin, Texas. She sees the impact on children and families with heartbreaking frequency. A student she had been helping with a serious speech impediment suddenly stopped coming to school. His father was in detention pending deportation—and with him the keys to the car his wife needed to get to work and to take their son to school. Montserrat worked with lawyers to obtain the car keys, but she cries when she recounts the mother asking how she could tell her son his father was not coming home.
Our current laws allow this to happen. They keep undocumented workers keep people in the shadows. They tear families apart. They cause unconscionable fear. They hurt our economy, our children and the American Dream. These oppressive policies have no place in a civilized society!
We need comprehensive immigration reform, and we need it now. We need to reclaim the promise for all who make America home—regardless of who they are or where they were born.
The time is now!