Immigrant Rights Group Threatens To Boycott Republican Candidates
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- Chicago immigrant rights groups have a warning for republicans - and one republican in particular: support a special driver's certificate for undocumented immigrants -- or else Latinos won't vote for your candidates.
WBBM'ss Steve Miller reports.
Republican State Senator Christine Radogno of Lemont - and her change of heart - really set immigrant rights advocates off.
Radogno had voted for the concept of a special driver's certificate for undocumented immigrants.
But then, she says, her constituents sounded off against it and therefore she changed her mind.
Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, doesn't like that switch.
"One thing that the immigrant community does is remember who its friends are and who its friends are not."
Senator Christine Radogno said:
"All the energy being put towards trying to get some sort of driving certificate ought to be put towards getting the federal government to close the borders and then make a decision on how to deal with the people that are here right now."
The bill is expected to come up in the full Senate in the next few weeks.
The immigrant rights advocates wheeled a cart full of 40,000 copies of voter registrations - people they say they'd registered in immigrant communities.
But when they tried to show state republicans the magnitude of their voting presence by delivering the boxes to the state republican party headquarters at Randolph and Franklin - in front of television cameras - they were turned away by building security.
"If they don't want the Latino vote, we'll take it over to the democrats," Hoyt said.
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