A Coalition of Latino Pastors took the cause of keeping families together to the streets Saturday joined by hundreds of affected families and youth from the FuerZa Juventud. The pastors announced their campaign to find a “pastoral way through the paralysis of partisanship” and their objective to end the deportations and separation of families this year – either by Congressional legislation or by Presidential action.

Several young “dreamers,” such as Ana Munoz, testified that while they had won their two year deferments and gotten drivers licenses and work permits, their lives would be severely changed if their parents, now facing deportation, were taken away from them. “We need them. We need our families.”

Others noted that even as they marched people were being arrested and taken from their families in Little Village. “The whole nation benefitted from the labor of undocumented workers and from our businesses. Now the nation must take shared responsibility for the families that were formed here and the children that were born here. It is a sin to separate these families!”
Pastora Emma Lozano led the march to the Federal Building on Saturday “to stop the deportations, to stop the militarization of the border and to pass a bi-partisan immigration reform bill.”