Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Gregg Ramos' family: fearful and upset under Arizona law

Gregg Ramos

I sent Arizona-born Nashville attorney Gregg Ramos a link to a CNN article about a U.S. soldier and his family lamenting the new Arizona law.  Here is an excerpt illustrating the soldier's disappointment in the state's decision:
Pfc. Jose Medina, an Army medic, came to the Arizona capitol while on leave, to express his sadness over the law, signed by Arizona's governor on Friday.
...
"I felt I had a huge debt to this country that's given me so much," Medina said. "When I heard the law that passed, I couldn't believe it. Because the America I know, freedom, liberties we enjoy, are for everyone and then this law passes and I'm like 'wow.' It's a shame; it's a state that doesn't even want you here? If I take this uniform off I'm just another person who came here illegally."
Gregg wrote me a terse initial reply to my e-mail about this story.  He followed up with more detail to more fully convey how the Arizona law is affecting his family, and to draw a parallel between Pfc. Jose Medina and Gregg's own father:
The members of my family, all of whom were born in Arizona, now are fearful and upset. My father, a proud U.S. Army veteran who served in France and Germany during WWII, clearly wasn't fighting for this.
Two ways to show your opposition to the new Arizona law are to support politicians who support immigrants (Immigrants List can tell you who some of them are), and to sign the "Not in Our America" petition.


Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons

2 comments:

  1. I am so disturbed about the passage of this law. Gregg, I am so sorry that your family in Arizona along with many, many others have to experience this! However, I believe that this will stir up a national outrage that will cause some who have not thought about or cared about immigration before now to take notice......and will compel all of us to work for comprehensive immigration reform, both in the U.S. and in Tennessee. The national conversations happening in the last few days are encouraging to me. Thanks, John Lamb and Gregg Ramos for this article. Laura Clark

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  2. One more comment: In the article about PFC Jose Medina in Phoenix, a soldier who served with Medina made the statement, "We are all brothers over there (Iraq, Afghanistan)." Are we not all brothers and sisters when we are at home in the U.S.? YES, WE ARE.

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