NCLR President and CEO Janet Murguía addresses the audience at the 2006 NCLR Capital Awards

Full Text

Good evening. It’s wonderful to be here and see so many friends with us tonight. As I look around, I see the diversity of our partners and the enthusiasm they bring to our shared work. Thank you all so much.

I believe that diversity is the defining characteristic of NCLR’s agenda. You know the issues we’re working on: hurricane relief, health, education, community development, voting rights and voter mobilization, and many more. Their collective goal is to ensure equality of opportunity to all Latinos in our nation.

Events like this give us a chance to thank legislators on both sides of the aisle who make this promise come alive. And our Capital Award winners exemplify this spirit – Tom Harkin and John Boehner are true champions for the Latino community. Because of their work, hundreds of thousands of Hispanic children tonight are better fed and better educated, and for that we are all grateful.

And yet despite the breadth of our agenda – and the diversity of our community – too often the outside world thinks we only care about one issue: immigration.

And in some ways, it’s hard to blame them. When the news is filled with armed vigilantes sitting on the border, or extremist politicians trying to put 11 million people on a bus out of America, it’s no wonder that people think Latino organizations must focus exclusively on immigration.

We know the reality is different. We know that strengthening schools, building affordable housing, fighting predatory lending, testing innovative new health interventions, and protecting Medicaid are also essential parts of NCLR’s work.

But immigration IS center stage right now, and we have stepped up to take a firm leadership role. It is a crucial issue to NCLR in two ways: one, it has a huge impact on our community, immigrant and non-immigrant alike, and two, until we get this issue settled, the rest of our agenda will be overshadowed. Latino families simply can’t afford inaction on the critical education, health care, and income issues they face every day; but the dominance of the immigration issue tends to push everything else aside.

There is simply too much at stake. We can’t let the immigration debate fester, especially when the demagogues are so eager to manipulate it for their own purposes.

So we are stepping up. And let me be clear: NCLR will fight to ensure that the United States has the best immigration policy for all Latinos and all Americans.

Right now, the debate in Congress reflects our greatest hopes AND our deepest fears. In one minute, it holds the promise for true reform, but in the next, immigrants – hardworking people like my parents and many of yours – are vilified, as if they were taking advantage of America rather than adding to the great abundance and economic vitality of this country.

There’s room in this debate for give and take on the issue of how best to get control over our borders. But there are voices in this debate who are going too far in relentlessly and unfairly attacking immigrants and Latinos. ¡Basta! We need to let the Minutemen know that their 15 minutes are up.

There is serious work to do, and no one should take advantage of this debate to foster bigotry and hatred. That is unacceptable.

It’s time for balance. It’s time for reasonable people to put their heads together and create reasonable solutions. It’s time to be constructive and fix an immigration system that we know is badly broken.

To do so, we have to reject a false choice. We have to reject the trap that says America needs EITHER enforcement OR openness. When I am asked whether we should expand immigration enforcement or expand legal immigration channels for those here, and those coming, I quote my colleague Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum and say that my answer is: yes.

We need to do both for a simple reason: both need to get done. Anyone who argues that it’s an either/or proposition is ignoring the reality on the ground. Security and opportunity are the defining virtues of our American democracy. Pursuing only one or the other rejects the promise America holds for all of us.

Of course we need to enforce our laws – we need to do it wisely, and well.

But we also need reform that creates legal paths for those who want to work in the United States. We need to make legality the basis of our immigration system.

When we do that, we will achieve several victories at once. We will strengthen our economy; we will settle the uncertainty of 11 million people living outside the scope or protection of the law; we will reunite families; and we will ensure that future immigration flows occur in a lawful, orderly manner.

An orderly path out of the shadows must also include permanent status. Anything less is a failure of leadership and an insult to those who contribute so much to our society.

Think about it – America didn’t send a man halfway to the moon, phase out the Civil Rights Act after ten years, or fight to a draw in World War II. When it comes to the big things – and immigration reform is a very big thing – America is at its best when it goes the distance and creates permanent solutions.

I believe there are enough people of goodwill, across the political spectrum, to move toward these solutions. The Security and Opportunity approach has bipartisan support – its champions are people like Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy. It also has key labor unions working side by side with the Chamber of Commerce, and how often does that happen?

We have one other advantage – the American people. Most Americans say they want balanced reform. Even though they are bombarded with negative images of immigrants on major media outlets every night, they instinctively know that this country continues to be a beacon of hope for those with dreams and aspirations for a better tomorrow and a greater America. They are smart enough to dismiss the politics of fear and demanding enough to expect courage and conviction from their national leaders.

Let’s get this done. Let’s expose the extremists and flamethrowers. After all, those who make a living fanning the flames of anti-immigrant hysteria aren’t offering solutions, because they have no real solutions. They call for throwing more money at the problem, more draconian measures that threaten everyone’s rights, more walls, more innocent children thrown out of schools, more of what hasn’t worked for the past 20 years. This isn’t surprising. It is not in their interest for the problem to be solved – they need an issue more than they want a solution.

But Latinos, and the vast majority of the American people, want real, lasting solutions. We know that real solutions require bipartisan efforts. We know that real solutions demand compromises from all parties. We know that real solutions can only emerge when both houses of Congress and the President work together.

Let’s engage in thoughtful and productive debate and create an immigration system that works. We are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. This is the 21st century. We can figure this out. Si se puede.

We at the National Council of La Raza will insist on it because we believe in the promise of America and we know how much is at stake for everyone. Thank you very much.

Associated Media Files

Download Janet Murguía's Speech (PDF Format)

All Content © 2008 NCLR. All Rights Reserved