Joins Prominent Immigrant Rights Groups to Advocate for Smart, Pragmatic Reform

Washington, DC-Today the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), America's Voice, Center for New Community, and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) launched a print ad denouncing known hate group, FAIR (the Federation for American Immigration Reform), for poisoning the immigration debate with bigoted, xenophobic hate speech. In support of the ad, SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina issued the following statement:

"It's time that everyone learns who FAIR's founders, leaders and followers truly are. They are not reformers, but a group of extremists whose leaders are fostering a bigoted, anti-immigrant, anti-American agenda that we must stop."

"We will not allow such a raging extremist group to hide behind this false veil of reform. By continuing to fan the flames of hate and fear, FAIR has contributed to rising levels of hate crimes and discrimination that we are seeing in immigrant communities across the country. There is no place for such fanatical hate speech anywhere in America today-especially not in the halls of Congress."

"It's time to stop the hate. Americans know that hate speech can't raise wages and living standards for workers, decrease gas prices, provide affordable healthcare, end the mortgage crisis, or solve immigration. America doesn't need zealots; we need smart, pragmatic immigration reform.

"Crude attempts to shut down our border and round up anyone who looks a certain way do not begin to solve our broken immigration system. Instead, we need to go after the bad-acting employers who exploit workers, and find a fair, practical way to get undocumented immigrants out of the underground economy, into the system and under the rule of law."

Click here to see a copy of the print ad that rain in Politico and Roll Call today.

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