AJC: Civil rights activists join fight against immigration bills (GA)

[pampango]

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/civil-rights-activists-join-904550.html

Seeing some parallels to their own struggle, veterans of the civil rights movement from the 1960s have joined the fight against Arizona-style legislation targeting illegal immigration.

In Georgia, state lawmakers are poised to vote on two bills that would empower police to investigate the immigration status of certain suspects and punish people caught transporting and harboring illegal immigrants. Such legislation, civil rights activists warn, could bring about the same kind of discrimination and racial profiling African-Americans struggled against decades ago. They have been delivering fiery speeches against House Bill 87 and Senate Bill 40 and marching alongside Hispanic activists in Georgia and in other states in recent months.

Last month, civil rights icon and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, joined thousands of people protesting the legislation outside the state Capitol. Quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis expressed solidarity with Hispanic activists and said he was willing to go to jail with them in the fight against the state’s proposed immigration enforcement measures.

“We are all brothers and sisters. It doesn’t matter whether we are black, white, Latino, Asian-American, Native American. We are one people. We are one family,” Lewis said, eliciting cheers. “We all live in the same house. If any one of us is illegal, then we all are illegal. There are no illegal human beings.”