Immigrants’ Rights Issues Get an Airing on Radio Talk Show : Activism: The program on an Oxnard station is part of a coalition’s efforts to help new residents gain citizenship.

By the time Armando Garcia walked into the KOXR radio station in Oxnard on a recent weekday morning, the white lights on the sound booth switchboard were blinking in anticipation.

Garcia adjusted his headphones, announced in Spanish the beginning of his weekly talk show on immigration, and with an auctioneer’s speed began firing off answers to listener questions ranging from how to apply for a green card to border patrol regulations.

The radio program is just one of many efforts organized by Garcia, president of the newly formed Coalition for Immigrants’ Rights to battle a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment and help illegal immigrants gain citizenship.

“We’re not here to promote illegal immigration,” said Garcia, a paralegal who works in Oxnard. “We’re here to prevent abuse of authority.”

Alarmed by the proposals by Ventura County Reps. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) to crack down on the flow of illegal immigrants, the Oxnard-based coalition has formed committees to tackle immigration issues in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Since forming in May, the group of about 20 attorneys, legal assistants and activists has held citizenship workshops, handled immigration cases, published a monthly newsletter and compiled a directory of medical, legal and housing services for illegal immigrants.

“People don’t leave their families, their culture, their religion for welfare benefits,” said Oscar Gonzalez, an Oxnard attorney and coalition spokesman. “They come here for $4.35 an hour, which is a king’s ransom in Mexico.”

But Gallegly, head of the Republican Task Force on Illegal Immigration, has said illegal immigrants are a growing burden on the American economy.

Gallegly, whose district includes most of Ventura County, has nine immigration-related bills pending and has proposed a constitutional amendment denying citizenship to children born to mothers who are in the United States illegally.

Garcia said he finds the amendment proposal “appalling,” because it would wipe out a tradition central to the formation of the United States.

Beilenson, whose congressional district includes most of Thousand Oaks, has proposed a bill to create a tamper-resistant Social Security card to be used by citizens and non-citizens seeking work. He said the card would help halt rampant document fraud.

Garcia argued that the card would invite discrimination and loss of privacy.

“In South Africa, when they forced people to carry I.D. cards, they called it apartheid,” Garcia said. “How is it any different if you do the same thing here?”

In order to combat the proposed legislation, the coalition has formed committees focusing on areas of particular concern.

Norma Negrete, who heads the coalition’s education efforts, offers free immigration advice from an office in Santa Barbara.

Negrete said she hopes that with the help of the coalition, she will be able to staunch fly-by-night operations that exact large sums of money from illegal immigrants with false promises of easy citizenship.

“Once people are here illegally, if there is a way for them to get papers, we want to help them,” Negrete said. “If there isn’t, we want them to know the truth so they can go home.”

But she said it is difficult to get illegal immigrants to attend immigration seminars.

“People are kind of scared right now,” Negrete said. “If you call a bunch of people who are here illegally and ask them to come, they say forget it. They think you’re going to turn them in.

“We are new, so people don’t trust us. We are trying to get the word out that the coalition wants to help people, that they are safe.”

Negrete said she would also like to set up classes to review U.S. laws with newly arrived immigrants from Mexico.

“When they get here they think the laws are the same as in Mexico,” Negrete said. “They don’t know, for example, that here you are not allowed to drink and drive.”

Fred Pierce, a paralegal in Oxnard, heads the coalition’s legislative committee.

He recently papered heavily Latino neighborhoods with sample letters opposing Gallegly’s legislation and encouraged residents to write their congressmen.

“We’re trying to get the community fired up about these issues,” Pierce said. “You can always attract a few activists, but you don’t get grass-roots support until the members of the grass roots themselves feel they have been the victims of bureaucratic bungling.”

FYI

For more information on the Coalition for Immigrant Rights, call (800) 834-2173.