Tag: Obama in Mexico

Deported Immigration Activist Reminds Obama of Plight of the Children of the Undocumented

MEXICO CITY — As President Barack Obama arrived in Mexico City Thursday, a small group of immigration activists demonstrated at the U.S. Embassy on leafy Paseo de la Reforma, close to downtown. They were there to demand comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. and a stop to immigration raids and deportations.

Children who are U.S. citizens but now live in Mexico because of their parents’ deportations were there. After President Obama said at his speech in the Democratic National Convention last year that no one “benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child,” activists had hoped he would stop deportations that break up families with an executive order. That has not happened.

The Pew Hispanic Center said this week that 73% of the children of undocumented immigrants were born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens.

One of the protesters present was Elvira Arellano, who became known nationwide when she fought a deportation order in 2006 by seeking sanctuary inside a Chicago church. Arellano was finally deported in 2007 and now runs a shelter for deported women and children in Tijuana while continuing to work for immigration reform from the other side of the border. She came to the embassy with her 10-year-old son, Saúl, a U.S. citizen.

You can watch a slideshow on the Arellanos below or, for higher quality, go to our YouTube channel.

Obama to Mexico: Let's Work Together

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

MEXICO CITY — Even before he landed in Mexico City today to begin a two day visit, President Obama had already sent a strong message to Mexicans via one of the capital city’s most influential newspapers.

 

El Universal 041609“Years of Progress, At Risk: Obama”  That was the headline this morning on the cover of El Universal, announcing an op-ed article penned by Obama, which ran simultaneously in several countries in newspapers belonging to the Grupo de Diarios de América consortium.

In the piece, the president acknowledges that the U.S., distracted “by other priorities,” has on many occasions “neither sought nor maintained relationships with its neighbors.”

…our progress is directly linked to progress in the whole American continent. My government has committed to the promise of a new day. We will renew and sustain more extensive relationships between the United States and the hemisphere.

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