Latino Green Candidates Lead on Immigrants' & Labor RightsGreen Party of the United States Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Contacts: Latino Green candidates lead on immigration, call for living wages and repeal of 'three strikes' law
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Latino Green candidates for congressional, statewide, and local office in the 2006 election have taken the lead on civil rights, immigration, labor rights and living wages, and numerous other issues. In California, Peter Camejo, the Green candidate for Governor <http://www.votecamejo.com>, has strongly criticized his state's 'three strikes' law. Mr. Camejo initiated and is serving as spokesperson for the campaign to free Santos Reyes, who was convicted six years ago for cheating by taking a DMV test for a relative <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0914-07.htm>. Mr. Reyes was convicted at age 17 back in 1981 for stealing a radio and at 22 for robbery; after serving time he had no offenses for the next 11 years, found a job, and raised a family. "It's no secret that life sentences, 'three-strikes' laws, and the death penalty fall disproportionately on Latinos, immigrants, African Americans, and other people of color and the poor," said Liz Arnone, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and an immigrant to the U.S. "Greens call this a civil rights issue. We believe that justice begins with making punishment commensurate with the seriousness of the crime. Otherwise, it means punishment for being the wrong color or not having enough money." Greens have called for full human rights and amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and have blamed the passage of trade agreements like NAFTA for the increased flow of immigrants across the U.S.'s southern border. "If we want to curb the number of undocumented immigrants, the first step must be repeal of NAFTA, which forced people all over Mexico into poverty and desperation," said David Minton Silva, Green candidate for California State Assembly (District 34, Tulare) <http://home.comcast.net/~greensurfer2/greensurfer2.html>. "We must renegotiate with Mexico and Canada for a real 'fair trade agreement' that would provide for livable wages. Working people and families throughout North America would prosper, and there would be little need to sneak across borders. The worst things we can do are to enact vicious punitive measures against undocumented immigrants and those who assist them, or erect a medieval 'security wall' -- which passed in the Senate with a bipartisan 80-19 majority." "We must look to the root causes of immigration -- our government's meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations for corporate profit, disastrous free trade agreements such as NAFTA, and economic strangulation and destabilization by the U.S. government of nations who decide to take matters into their own hands and care for their citizens, as opposed to having their national policy decided in Washington," said Paul Aranas, Oregon Green candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in District 5 <http://www.votearanas.org>. Mr. Aranas noted Public Citizen's critical report on NAFTA's ten-year track record <http://www.citizen.org/trade/nafta>. Other Latino Green candidates on the November 7 ballot:
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