‘Keeping Families Together’ bus tour stops in Nashua Saturday to rally for immigration reform

NASHUA – Nashua area families, among the millions nationwide impacted by immigrant deportations over the past four years, are invited to share their experiences at St. Aloysius of Gonzaga Parish this Saturday as part of a “Keeping Families Together” bus tour, put on by a Massachusetts advocacy group. The tour, part of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement launched in December 2012, aims to empower individuals whose families have been “splintered by our broken immigration system,” according to a press release. The Fair Immigration Reform Movement is a national coalition of grass-roots organizations fighting for immigration reform at the local, state and federal level in 30 states. The “Keeping Families Together” bus tour will visit 90 cities in 29 states to push for immigration reform to keep families together, as families and individuals share stories of family separation. “It’s definitely an issue in Nashua,” said Janeth Orozco, a Nashua resident and interning project manager with Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition. For part of New England’s leg of the tour, the bus will stop in Nashua at 10 a.m. Saturday, aiming to advocate for citizenship for undocumented immigrants, to restore family unity in immigration law and to unite immigrant families. The tour, which will continue across New England in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, gives families a chance to share their stories and to organize with others with similar experiences. “MIRA has come to the town in Nashua and spoken to people about their immigrant rights,” Orozco said. “It’s more like people are highlighting how they’ve been affected by splitting the family, by having one or both parents being removed.” Nashua families living with undocumented immigrants have suffered from not knowing their rights when the local police comes to visit, Orozco said. “Because they don’t know their rights, that they shouldn’t open the door, once they open the door, they kind of surrendered their rights and have to comply with ICE,” Orozco said.