Roughly 100 people gathered in Manitowoc’s Washington Park Saturday afternoon for a rally to support immigrants in our community.
The rally coincided with others in Oshkosh, Green Bay, and Oconto, which aimed to shine a light on the struggles immigrants have after coming to our country.
Pastor Matt Sauer served as the emcee for the Manitowoc rally, hosted by Progressive Lakeshore People, calling immigrants “co-builders of our beloved community”.
Michael Slattery gave a history of the immigration issues in our country and addressed several myths regarding immigration.
One of those was the amount of drugs coming across the border, to which he said the demand issue is a bigger problem than the supply issue.
Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry CEO Sachin Shivaram also spoke about an employee of his who is facing deportation.
This individual came to the U.S. on asylum and had set up a life in Manitowoc.
Shivaram noted that the employee was due for a court hearing on his asylum claim, and took a day off work to go down to Milwaukee for the hearing, only to have it delayed by a day.
The man could not afford to take another day off from work, so he skipped the next court date and shortly thereafter received a letter saying he was being deported.
Shivaram has been trying to help this man stay in the country and received help from Representative Glenn Grothman, whom he praised for his help.
Jill Iverson with Progressive Lakeshore People organized the rally, saying she and the others in attendance are concerned for their neighbors and about human rights.
“There are a lot of things that have happened that are crucial and need to be addressed, and we need to stand together in order to do that,” she told SeehaferNews.com.
Iverson pointed out a couple of key points that she and others hope to help address.
“They need to get to work, and in order to get to work, they need to have some kind of driver’s cards,” she explained.
Iverson elaborated, saying, “They’re hiding in their homes. They’re frightened. They feel attacked. It’s affecting all generations as we see things happening on the news where children are taken away from graduation parties and parents and people are being disappeared, we don’t even know where they are.”
Tina Hintchley, the Vice President of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, was also on hand to, as she put it, “capture the mood of what is happening.”
She noted that immigrants are very important in the dairy industry, and their worlds have become very difficult.
“There’s nothing that is happening right now that is not chaotic and stressful,” she said. “Being involved in something like this is something that we all should be doing.”
She also noted that the WFU is a strong supporter of getting driver’s licenses for immigrants of all backgrounds.
“Driver’s licenses for all is super, super important,” Hintchley said bluntly. “It’s not just the Hispanics that are having issues with this, but it’s many, many, many immigrants that are here that are finding it difficult to get to work because they’re not allowed to have a driver’s license.”
The other speakers at the event preached compassion and empathy for the immigrants in our communities, and encouraged everyone to make their voices heard.
