WASHINGTON ( Labor, Activists Call on Obama to Halt Deportations -300,000 a year )

Labor, Activists Call on Obama to Halt Deportations

WASHINGTON – Organized labor and activist groups asked President Barack Obama on Monday that he halt deportations of undocumented immigrants who would be eligible for legalization under bills pending in Congress.

“The deportations must stop, and they must stop right now,” Ana Avendaño, spokeswoman on immigration topics for the AFL-CIO, said in a teleconference.

The Senate has already begun the process of amendments on a bipartisan bill that will seek to resolve the status of the close to 11 million foreigners estimated to live and work in the United States without authorization.

The Obama government has said its priority is the detention and deportation of immigrants who commit serious crimes, but since 2009 it has maintained a deportation rate of more than 300,000 people annually.

The process of immigration reform faces even more difficulties in the House of Representatives, where Republicans have the majority, than in the Senate.

In the meantime, Obama can exercise his authority to suspend deportations, Thomas Saenz, head of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said.

“We are asking the president to exercise discretion and cease deportations for those who qualify under the proposal of the Group of 8,” Saenz said, referring to the bipartisan Senate bill.

Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said that Obama “cannot be a bystander in the process.” EFE