Freedom Riders advocating migrant reform

A new Freedom Ride, patterned after the 1961 bus trips to the Deep South, will come through Utah's capital city Thursday.

This caravan of 10 buses and 850 riders is larger and reaches farther than did its predecessor, just as its call for radical reform reaches beyond any particular U.S. region.

The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride is a push for change in national immigration policy, for "legalization and a road to citizenship," as national spokesman David Koff puts it. While he expects hostility in at least some of the 103 cities on the route, Koff sees a robust base of support in Utah. Salt Lake City will host only four busloads of about 200 Freedom Riders this Thursday, but they will be met by a diverse group of allies.

At the Freedom Ride rally at the Capitol, speakers will include the Rev. Monsignor Robert Bussen, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Park City, and Utah AFL-CIO leader Ed Mayne, a Democratic state senator from West Valley City.

"We are very much in need of a wise rewrite of the current immigration laws," Father Bussen said, "not necessarily just for the immigrants, but also for the good of America as a whole." Employers want immigrant workers since they will take jobs no one else wants, he said. Yet the migrants who make it across the border without legal papers find they have no avenue to gain citizenship. An ethical solution, he believes, would be to open a clearer path to legal residency.

Father Bussen will give the invocation at the Capitol Thursday. And Mayne, with Lt. Gov. Olene Walker at his side, will read a resolution that was unanimously approved during the 2003 Utah Legislature. House Joint Resolution 28 urges Congress to review U.S. immigration policy and to consider granting U.S. citizenship to immigrants who have children born in the United States, have married a U.S. citizen, have served in the U.S. military or who have lived a law-abiding five years in this country.

Mayne said labor leaders in the state want fair treatment for all and an end to exploitation of undocumented immigrants. "We've witnessed the horror stories of these workers being told, 'We're not going to pay you minimum wage,' " he said, adding that undocumented workers have a higher incidence of injury and fatality on the job since they're afraid to complain about unsafe conditions.

The workers may have entered the states illegally, Mayne acknowledged, but to him a wrong on the south side of the border doesn't justify another wrong on this side.