10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children. They don’t have to like it, but it is a result of having a broken system of laws. And the answer to that problem is reforming the law...."
“Being Latina does not give you a license to advocate for, and spin around, policies that devastate Latinas,” said Presente.org co-founder Roberto Lovato. “Presente.org has attacked right-wing people like Lou Dobbs,” Lovato said. “Muñoz is out there talking about immigrants like she’s a Republican white man. The messenger has changed, but the message is the same.”

In response to the call for Muñoz’s resignation, some of the nation’s leading immigrant rights groups released a joint statement Monday in defense of Muñoz. The statement was signed by 18 organizations including the Center for Community Change, National Council of La Raza, Asian American Justice Center, National Immigration Forum, America’s Voice and National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
“A lot of leaders in the immigrant rights community wanted to make sure that the debate (over Cecilia Muñoz) does not become a distraction from the real issues at hand: the way the administration is enforcing the law,” explained Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.
“The administration’s policies are causing real harm and suffering and they need to be changed,” said Bhargava. “Cecilia is not the cause of those bad policies, and we are confident that she is doing everything she can to improve them.”
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), one of the organizations that signed the letter, explained, “We have known Cecilia Muñoz for many years and although we disagree with her statements as of late defending the indefensible, we believe her to be a woman of integrity, compassion, and deep commitment to work on behalf of all immigrants. While it is unfortunate she has to be one of the spokespersons for the failed Obama administration’s immigration policy, we are not going to lump everyone together and lose the few allies we have in the White House.”
The Department of Homeland Security announced last month that it had deported 396,000 individuals in the last year – the largest number in the agency’s ...