More than 100 leaders of Strangers No Longer vowed to carry on their fight in the presence of State Senator Stephanie Chang (Royal Oak) and State Representative Tyrone Carter (Southwest Detroit) at the Strangers No Longer Assembly for Human Dignity in Detroit last Friday, December 15. Sen. Chang and Rep. Carter are primary champions of the DRIVE SAFE legislative campaign, which, if successful, would reinstate laws allowing undocumented immigrants to get a Driver’s License and State ID.
Strangers No Longer also heard testimony from several immigrants about Wage Theft. The Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, representing over 14,000 workers in Michigan, asked Strangers No Longer to join their efforts to enact legislation that would punish Wage Theft, regardless of a person’s immigration status. A representative of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center encouraged Strangers No Longer to join the campaign.
Wage Theft and Drivers Licenses for Immigrants will be topics of the Strangers No Longer Advocacy Day in Lansing on March 19. For Catholics, that date is the feast day of St. Joseph the Worker. Rich Faba, Chair of the SNL Advocacy Task Force, promised, “We’ll really work on the legislators.”
Immigrant leaders from Traverse City, Ionia, and Holland joined the Assembly. One of them exclaimed, “I never knew we immigrants had this much support.” Fr. Dave Buersmeyer and six Immigrant Leaders blessed all the participants with the prayer, “Go with God into 2024.”
