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Hector Tobar at the LA Times last week penned a column about the August 23rd massacre of 72 U.S.-bound immigrants in Northeastern Mexico and makes an interesting Los Angeles/immigration debate connection:
To stop SB 1070, we've seen Angelenos drive across the desert to Phoenix to march, to denounce both the governor of Arizona and the mad sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio. But I've yet to hear of any rallies at the Mexican consulate or anywhere else here in Los Angeles, demanding that the Mexican government prosecute those guilty of so many migrant killings and disappearances.
Most of the country's leading immigrant rights groups haven't even bothered to issue a news release. This is wrong. We can't turn a blind eye to the deeper, seemingly intractable injustices that are the obvious root cause of the problem.
Simply put: It's wrong that people have to undertake the journey to the U.S. in the first place. People shouldn't have to leave the land of their ancestors, their extended families, their barrios and their farms.