Mayoral candidates Gery Chico and Carol Moseley Braun took part in an event Friday to speak in favor of a moratorium on the deportation of illegal immigrants.
The two candidates joined Rep. Luis Gutierrez and other activists at a press event held by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. ICIRR released a report that says 78 percent of the those detained through a program aimed at catching illegal immigrants with criminal records in fact had no record at all.
"We have asked the president personally, and his staff in general, to stop these deportations of non-criminal aliens here in the United States of America. And we've reminded the president on those numerous occasions of the devastating effect that this is having on our American citizens," said Gutierrez.
Said Chico:
"The city of Chicago is a city of neighborhoods and city of immigrants... If I'm elected mayor and privileged to be elected mayor, I won't let it happen."
Added Moseley Braun:
"This is a country of immigrants... It's up to us to make certain that each and every one of [the levels of government] provide fairness and justice and fair treatment to all of the people who live here."
Rahm Emanuel and Miguel del Valle were invited to the event but did not attend.
At the same event, Gutierrez and Chico took time to pile on Emanuel, who released a Chicago DREAM plan a day earlier, saying that Emauel's record has shown he's on the wrong side of immigration reform.
