A walk for Immigrant Justice

Join contingents of UUSF members, Mujeres Unidas y Activas and others to walk with immigrant rights marchers on the last leg of a 40 mile march from Petaluma. Meet at the Golden Gate Bridge, S.F. side at 11 AM. We’ll then meet the marchers who are due at the Vista Point (Marin side of the bridge) at 11:30 am and walk the 7 miles from the bridge to S.F. Civic Center and S.F. Federal building at 7th and Mission.

As 40 years of congressional inaction on immigration reform near, hundreds of immigrant community members, allies, and supporters will hit the hot highways of Northern California on Saturday, August 5, 2023 from Petaluma and San Jose on a 40-mile plus walk that will culminate in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco on Monday, August 7, 2023.

The “All In for Registry” walk is organized by dozens of immigrant rights organizations in the Bay Area and northern California, and members of the Northern California Coalition for Just Immigration Reform (NCCJIR).

Organizers expect hundreds to walk over 40 miles plus from either starting point in Petaluma or San Jose to demand respect for human rights at the U.S.-Mexico border and to press Congress to pass H.R. 1511 (known as the “Registry Bill”) which would allow approximately 8 million undocumented people currently living in the U.S. to apply for legal permanent residency.

H.R. 1511, the “Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929," (HR 1511). or “Registry Bill” updates a 1929 law so that undocumented individuals may apply for legal permanent residency as long as they have lived in the country for at least seven years. It is estimated that approximately eight million of the approximately eleven million undocumented people in the U.S. will benefit under this new update of current law.

“Is this the kind of country we want to be, one that causes injury and death to families, including children, who migrate to the U.S. fleeing economic and political oppression?” states Socorro Diaz, leader of NCCJIR and of ALMAS LIBRES, an Immigrant & Indigenous women’s empowerment organization in Sonoma County. “No more suffering! We ask that Congress pass H.R. 1511 so that migrants have a reasonable process to apply for residency, and they may come out of the shadows of work exploitation and fear.”