CHICAGO – Pro-immigrant groups in Chicago are marking U.S. Citizenship Day with a call to local Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez to assume leadership of fair, humane and sensible immigration reform.

At the headquarters of the Unite Here union hundreds of people were waiting for the “Party of the ‘Illegals,’” organized by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Javier Salas, host of “Un Nuevo Dia” on La Tremenda 1200 AM (Univision Radio).

The aim is to celebrate the contributions made by undocumented immigrants with the presence of personalities from Chicago’s large Mexican-American community who will speak about their experiences before they became U.S. citizens.

“We don’t want to injure anyone’s sensibilities, but rather to raise our awareness and awaken the sleeping giant of social justice and see what we’re going to do about not accepting the unacceptable,” ICIRR policy director Artemio Arreola told Efe.

“While a great deal of attention has been on health care reform – and rightly so – the urgent need for immigration reform has not diminished,” the ICIRR said in a statement. “If anything, the acrimony, deception and scapegoating of immigrants in the health care debate has underscored the need for a comprehensive solution that resolves the immigration issue.”

For that reason, ICIRR and the Chicago-based National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities publicly urged Gutierrez to take the leadership role in the effort.

“The scapegoating of immigrants diverts our attention from the urgent need to fix our bankrupt health care system, and the anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric sows hatred, misinformation and fear about who we are as a community,” said Oscar Chacon, the executive director of NALACC.

Over the summer, NALACC conducted community consultations in 10 cities around the country to hear directly from the people who are most affected by the current conditions surrounding immigrants, and about what a reform of immigration laws should include.

The results highlighted large differences between what the immigrant community understands to be a fair reform of immigration law and what has emerged as “comprehensive” reform within the federal legislative environment.

Specifically, the immigrant community favors proposals for immigration reform based on the vision of the immigrant as a benefit to U.S. society and not as a burden or a threat, the organization said.

The groups are urging Gutierrez and other congressional leaders to draft a bill that has as its basic principles family reunification, recognition of the contributions made by the immigrant community and respect for their human dignity.

Among the points suggested for the new law are permanent residence for all undocumented immigrants with a path toward citizenship that recognizes their contribution and does not punish them with quotas and exorbitant fines.

In addition, suggestions have been made to facilitate family and citizens’ requests to promote family reunification and to overturn or abolish the agreements giving state and local law enforcement agencies the authority to enforce immigration laws.

“To those among us who are at the receiving end of an incredibly unjust, obsolete and immoral law, reforming it means justice,” NALACC’s Chacon said in a statement.

“For as long as the view of immigrants as ‘illegals’ and ‘criminal aliens’ pervades, we will continue with the current misguided policy framework that calls for more enforcement measures that at the end of the day, do not accomplish their aim, while exacting a tremendous human cost on migrant communities, as well as an overall waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” he said. EFE