Immigrant Rights: Striving for Racial Justice, Economic Equality
and Human Dignity by Camellia Phillips for the National Network
for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Over the last two years, the
possibility of a broad legalization program for undocumented
immigrants living and working in the United States has emerged
as not only a potentially achievable goal for the immigrant
rights movement, but as a political issue taken up by anti-
immigrant groups, employers hungry for profits, and high profile
political figures. Legalization itself has always been a long-
term objective for many immigrant rights groups, some of which
fought for more than a decade for the 1986 legalization that had
allowed more than two million undocumented immigrants to gain
legal status. Preparing for this newest struggle, immigrant
rights activists anticipated strong and well-funded opposition
from the anti-immigrant movement, which was expected to invest
hundreds of thousands of dollars in media campaigns to influence
public opinion. Over t