PISSING OFF THE IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO HAS BEEN A VERY BAD IDEA FOR DAN LIPINSKI

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After Democratic Party Boss Rahm Emanuel ordered Democratic House candidates to "move to the right" on immigration issues and then got one of his most subservient shills, pathetic North Carolina freshman Heath Shuler, to work with Tom Tancredo on an anti-immigrant bill, Blue America teamed up with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to try to hold Emanuel accountable.

But Emanuel isn't the only anti-immigrant reactionary in Chicago. Next week one of Emanuel's puppets, Dan Lipinski, is facing the most difficult election of his life. Netroots activists and the ICIRR have also been working to make Lipinski and his Inside the Beltway backers understand that you can't expect to ride to an easy re-election by targeting immigrant communities. Like Emanueel's district, Lipinski's has a huge-- and motivated-- immigrant population. IL-03 contains some 125,000 immigrants and is home to 139,000 Latinos and 39,000 Asians. Instead of working with these communities to help integrate them into American society, Lipinski has consistently voted against the interests of these constituents. He voted for the Patriot Act, the Sensenbrenner legislation, to build the fence between the U.S. and Mexico, and for a Tancredo amendment that would cost Chicago federal funding as a "sanctuary city."

Lipinski is anti-choice, pro-corporate, pro-war, anti-stem cell... and an all-around Bush supporter, enough to attract a great deal of support from progressives around the country. The immigrant community is a big part of the Pera coalition on the ground, mostly because of his steadfast support of a humane approach to immigration reform. Several years ago, after Sensenbrenner's viciously anti-immigrant legislation, the ICIRR started a citizenship drive in Chicago and every year since then the number of citizenship applications has climbed dramatically-- from 28,000 in 2004 - 2005, to 35,000 from 2005 - 2006, to 56,000 in the past year. The ICIRR has helped over 53,000 immigrants register to vote.

The efforts immigrants rights activists is making in Asian, Mexican and Muslim communities on behalf of Mark Pera is sending a message to anti-immigrant Democrats and Republicans who have sizable immigrant populations that they can expect career difficulties for pushing hatred and bigotry instead of viable solutions.

During the current race the Mexican and Muslim immigrant leadership have formed a strong political alliance. ICIRR sponsored a voter’s forum with over 400 Mexican and Muslim immigrant leaders that was attended by Pera and another challenger, but not by their own congressman. The absence of Lipinski was heavily noted in the Spanish and ethnic language media.

And immigrant activism has gone much further. The Mexican and Muslim communities have collaborated on fundraising for the Pera Campaign, bringing in thousands of dollars locally and using the money to open a second campaign office and to hire two experienced immigrant organizers to mobilize Mexican and Muslim voters.

In addition the immigrants in the campaign have recruited Immigrants List to make this campaign a national target. An e-mail fundraising request went to over 18,000 people nationally and raised an additional $14,000 for the immigrant organizing in the Pera campaign. Finally, the national Campaign for Community Change (the 501c4 sister organization to the Center for Community Change) decided to send a first in the nation series of bi-lingual educational mail pieces, informing Latino voters in the district of Lipinski’s vote for the Sensenbrenner legislation.
Over the course of the campaign this volunteer driven immigrant field operation expects to have:

•          lit dropped 2,300 Arab households and sent an additional 2,300 a "dear neighbor" letter
•          lit dropped 7,300 latino households
•          mailed 23,000 Latinos with an immigration specific piece
•          mailed 23,000 Latino households 5 times with regular Pera literature
•          called 3,000 immigrant voters through a phone bank
•          doorknocked 5,000 immigrant voters through a canvas
• Involved over 300 Mexican and Muslim volunteers in the Pera campaign

There has never before been this type of alliance between the progressive community, the national netroots community, and the immigrant’s rights movement to punish an anti-immigrant incumbent Congressman. Lipinski is faced with a vigorous and well financed primary. The immigrant’s rights movement has organized candidate forums; educational mailings that informed the immigrant electorate of the incumbent’s anti-immigrant record; local and national fundraising; a staffed field operation with Mexican and Muslim voter i.d. and GOTV efforts; and targeted partisan mail that held the incumbent accountable for his anti-immigrant record.

For Democrats and Republicans who vote to criminalize their immigrant constituents this is a foreshadowing of what they face in the future. Lipinski would have done himself a big favor by paying attention to how his state's junior senator relates to latinos.

Pera's isn't the only crucial primary coming up in Illinois. Please consider donating to his campaign, as well as to the campaigns of Illinois progressives John Laesch and Randi Scheurer.

Dear Chicago...