Panel focuses on immigration’s human face

A panel of attorneys and advocates for immigrants urged lawmakers Tuesday to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, saying that much of the backlash against illegal immigration ignores the human element of the debate.

“It’s really sad … that the laws of the country don’t reflect the role of our highly evolved society” in welcoming immigrants to the United States, said local immigration attorney Peter Ashman, who also serves as chairman of the Nevada chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Current immigration laws should allow for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, Ashman said. A guest worker program that would allow residents to work for six years and return to their home country doesn’t deal with the real issue: the situation of immigrants already in the country illegally, he said.

“To have these people leave after six years, frankly, I think, is beneath us as a country,” Ashman said.

The panel discussion, organized by the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, an umbrella advocacy organization that represents roughly three-dozen liberal-leaning groups, took place at Boyd Law School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. About 30 people attended the gathering.

Leticia Saucedo, an associate professor of law and co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic at UNLV, said the belief held by many Americans that illegal immigrants only want to send money back to family in their home country and not become American citizens is a myth.

She cited a Pew Hispanic Center study that showed that most illegal immigrants want to stay in the country as long as possible, or permanently.

The study found that two-thirds of the 6.5 million illegal immigrants in the United States have children who are American citizens and don’t want to be separated from their families.

The Rev. Bob Stoeckig, pastor of St. Joseph, Husband of Mary Church on Sahara Avenue, near Rainbow Boulevard, said taking people who are lashing out against immigrants on trips to the border area would give them a change of heart.

He said actually witnessing people dying to get to America puts the national debate in a different light.

“When we talk about immigration, we need to talk about it with a human face,” Stoeckig said. “Too often in our rhetoric, this (issue) becomes an abstraction.”