Group Vows to Help

September 22, 2006

Groups vow fight to help U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants

By CASEY WOODS
cwoods@MiamiHerald.com

A coalition of immigrant advocates announced a plan today to fight for a vulnerable group that they say is losing out in the contentious immigration debate: the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.

''This is a group of American citizens who don't have anyone to fight for them,'' said Alfonso Oviedo, president of American Fraternity, which was previously known as Nicaraguan Fraternity. ``[Their parents] now find themselves under constant threat of deportation . . . the ones who will suffer the most will not be the parents, it will be the children.''

Oviedo, flanked by representatives from Honduran Unity and the Peruvian-American Coalition, announced a class-action lawsuit the organizations are preparing on behalf of American children of undocumented immigrants. The lawsuit will argue that the children's constitutional rights have been violated because of the unremitting fear that they will be deported with their parents.

At least 10 children are already part of the lawsuit, and the advocacy groups are inviting other families to join it. They plan on filing the case in federal court on October 4.

''We aren't going to rest until we have a solution to this problem,'' said Sergio Massa, of the Peruvian-American Coalition. ``If we have to, we'll go all the way to the Supreme Court.''

The announcement comes amid renewed debate on immigration enforcement in Congress, where progress on comprehensive reform stalled earlier this year because of dueling bills passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives. The House measure focused mostly on border enforcement, while the Senate version included provisions that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants and create a guest-worker program.