Protesters turn back three buses carrying 140 immigrants as they attempt to enter the Murrieta U.S. Border Patrol station for processing on Tuesday, July 1, 2014, in Murrieta, Calif.(AP Photo/The Press-Enterprise, David Bauman)
There will be hundreds of protests taking place all across the United States this weekend opposing the surge of illegal immigrants causing the border crisis, and proposed immigration reform that organizers say amounts to amnesty to those breaking the law.
The weekend “National Days of Protest against Immigration Reform Amnesty & The illegal Immigration Surge” protests are scheduled to take place through Sunday.
Organizers for the events, as well as from Overpasses for America and Make Them Listen, say at least 321 protests will take place over the next two days, from state capitals to highway overpasses to Mexican consulates.
The protests are in response to thousands of Central American immigrants seeking amnesty, not fleeing from violence, entering the United States en masse illegally over recent weeks and months.
“We know that 12,000 people expected to attend nearly 300 events shows illegal immigration is the most important problem facing America,” said William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC.
Many of the Central Americans who have illegally entered the U.S. since the spring are being housed in federal facilities across the country at taxpayers’ expense, and also being dumped into various cities across the U.S. The protests are meant to call attention to the broken immigration system and both President Obama’s blatant invitation to illegally cross the border and his unwillingness to enforce immigration law.
Gheen noted a June 20 Gallup poll that shows 65 percent of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s handling of the country’s immigration issues.
“More people are learning that Obama is smuggler in chief,” Gheen said, referring to the president’s 2012 executive memo that relaxed deportations for many illegal immigrants. “It’s welcome mat that is a complete breech of existing law.”
A recent Gallup poll prior to the border crisis headlines also found most Americans aren’t exactly keen on legal immigration, let alone illegal immigration. “In fact, more Americans think immigration should be decreased than increased, and by a nearly two-to-one margin, 41 percent vs. 22 percent,” said Lydia Saad of Gallup.
Similarly, the latest Rasmussen Reports survey found that 59 percent of likely voters believe the primary focus of any new immigration legislation passed by Congress should be to send the young illegal immigrants back home as quickly as possible. In the survey, just 27 percent said it should focus instead on making it easier for these illegal immigrants to remain in the United States.
This weekend’s protests follow individual protests in cities and states across the country — including the most notable in Murrieta, California, where busloads of illegal immigrants were turned away by protestors. Protests also transpired in Westminster, Maryland, by residents opposed to illegal border-crossers being temporarily housed in facilities in their neighborhoods.
And they are working.
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who just last week criticized efforts to deport these illegal immigrants, is now the latest governor to tell the White House not to house any of them in his state. The governor’s decision was directly related to the protest that took place earlier this week, which was successful at protesting against a Health and Human Services Department plan to house illegal immigrant children in an Army Reserve center.
According to Rasmussen, a whopping 57 percent of likely voters disapprove of housing these illegal immigrants in their state, while half as many (29 percent) approve and 14 percent are undecided.
