The Thursday-morning conference is hosted by Grupo Salinas and Azteca America in partnership with ASU’s School of Transborder Studies and will be held at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism’s First Amendment Forum, according to a news release from Azteca America.
“State of Latinos: Truth in Immigration” serves as a comprehensive look into U.S.-Mexico transborder issues and immigration laws, as well as the future of immigration.
Participants include Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, ASU transborder studies and immigration faculty, and representatives from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Council of La Raza. A media panel including reporters from the Arizona Republic, Azteca America and Prensa Hispana will discuss immigration coverage.
“The entire forum is set up to bring rational and logical discourse, to counter the misconceptions and the loud voices of irrational commentators,” said Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez, the director of ASU’s School of Transborder Studies and a speaker at the event.
He added that the dialogue is important because immigration affects so many people.
“Students cannot just concentrate on what’s going on in their buildings on their campus,” said Evelyn Cruz, director of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law’s Immigration Law & Policy Clinic. “Whatever happens to their neighbors happens to them.”
Interdisciplinary studies junior Christian, whose last name could not be included because of his undocumented status, said downtown students need to be educated more on immigration issues, adding that he feels people on the Tempe campus might be discussing the issue more.
“Not a lot of people know, and not a lot of people try to find out,” he said.
Christian is one of the students affected personally by immigration. As an undocumented student, he was unable to receive financial aid for college, despite graduating in the top 3 percent of his high school class.
He is an active member of S.U.F.F.R.A.G.E., an organization dedicated to promoting immigrant rights with particular emphasis on the passage of the DREAM Act, which would provide a pathway to legal status, with several requirements, for undocumented high school graduates who would like to enroll in universities or the U.S. military.
Mathew Nevarez, a social work sophomore in the group, agreed that people needed to be educated more about immigration issues.
In its first semester as an official Downtown campus student organization, S.U.F.F.R.A.G.E. works heavily with the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition from which it was birthed. The club consists of about 50 students from several ASU campuses and local community colleges, as well as college alumni. Around seven of those students are from the downtown campus, Nevarez said.
Together, the group campaigns for its cause, registers students to vote, phone-banks senators nationwide and holds vigils in support of both the act and students facing charges of “illegal entry” for their role in DREAM Act civil disobedience in Washington D.C. The organization meets every two weeks.
Last week, one way in which the DREAM Act could have been passed, as an amendment to a defense appropriations bill, was rejected when the bill was shut down by a U.S. Senate vote, thus leaving a stand-alone bill as its only option.
“Now it’s do-or-die time,” Nevarez said. “It’s something that needs to be dealt with now.”
Contact the reporter at vpelham@asu.edu
