Devil’s in the details

By Timothy Pratt

Monday, April 10, 2006 | 7:04 a.m.

A growing number of local groups trying to influence Congress on immigration agree on giving legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants, but they differ on how to reach that goal.

Take, for instance, an anonymous posting allegedly put on the MySpace Web site urging Southern Nevada high school students to march.

Using words in Spanish and English that a family newspaper can't repeat, the message focused on rallying marchers by creating an enemy - "white trash."

Other local groups taking part in the increasingly vocal chorus of opinions on the issue of immigration condemned the words, what Pilar Weiss, political director of the Culinary Union, called "racist, xenophobic jargon."

Those groups, now including the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas, the Culinary Union, immigration attorneys, at least two student organizations and several Hispanic organizations, all seem to be seeking a comprehensive bill offering a path to legalize as many of the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants as possible.

But they differ on the details.

"Part of what's happening is you have a lot of different communities affected by the issue, who don't always agree on tactics, and don't agree on the message," Weiss said.

Miguel Barrientos, president of a group called the Mexican American Political Association, said he is taking a long view on the issue and will be registering Hispanics to vote in the coming months.

"Nothing's good if we can't show results on election day," he said.

The Culinary Union, whose hotel workers include immigrants from more than 75 countries, joined forces with the diocese on Friday to hold the first local Mass seeking "justice for immigrants" since the Senate began working on legislation in recent weeks.

The Rev. Bob Stoeckig, pastor at St. Joseph, Husband of Mary Church in Las Vegas, said the Diocese of Las Vegas decided last week to weigh in on the issue to "inject the voice of human dignity" into the debate. He said the diocese supports "comprehensive reform," meaning protecting the borders while offering those in the country illegally a way to become citizens.

Stoeckig said the diocese was "not advocating going out into the streets and marching."

Weiss, meanwhile, said 150 of her union members, together with Culinary President Geoconda Arguello-Kline and Executive Director D. Taylor, met Thursday with staffers of Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., on the issue. The meeting came 24 hours before what appeared to be a Senate compromise melted down amid partisan squabbles.

The union official said the organization's 60,000 members would be encouraged to lobby Ensign, who has previously been against allowing illegal immigrants already in the country a pathway to citizenship.

Over at UNLV, Evelyn Flores hoped to get middle school, high school and college students from across the valley into the streets again today, under the leadership of a group formed in recent weeks called Students Stand Up.

The march will begin at 9:30 a.m. today at Jaycee Park at St. Louis and Eastern avenues and finish at the George Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas, she said.

Flores said organizers would be handing out the Stars and Stripes to marchers and encouraging them to wear white, a show of "unity in support of peace and justice."

As for the controversy caused by images of marchers hoisting Mexican and other Latin American flags, she said her group wasn't "encouraging them to carry Mexican flags but didn't want to infringe on their freedom of expression either."

In another sign of differing approaches to the issue, Yazel Navarrete, of the Student Organization of Latinos, said her group didn't favor encouraging students to march while school is in session. High school students might be out this week, she said, but college students are in class.

As for the anonymous Internet posting from the previous round of student marches, she called it an "ignorant comment."

"It makes me feel as if, 'Do they really know what it is we're fighting for?' "

She said the message made her wonder, "Who is it you're telling this to? Who is the audience? You can't point at a person - but you can point to a bill in Congress."

Weiss said the local "movement" to influence reform in Congress is still young, and it will be a "challenge" for groups to work together, and not in "silos."

"A lot of this has only happened in the last 10 days," she said.

"At this point it's hard to say who's in charge. Is it the people who are the biggest group affected (by immigration laws)? Is it people from the civil rights movement? Is it the students?"