Minnesota Salutes Immigrant Worker Freedom Riders
9/25/2003.
Immigrants, their families and friends will gather at 5:30 p.m. Thursday evening at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis. Their purpose: to salute the 80 Minnesotans who will board buses Sunday in support of immigrant workers rights....

Western Queens March Focuses On Plight Of Immigrant Workers
9/25/2003. Queens Chronicle
Activists marched from Jackson Heights to Corona on Saturday to protest the treatment that immigrant workers have faced on both a national and local level since the September 11th attacks. The march served as a precursor to the national Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride that will culminate with a rally on October 4th in Flushing Meadows Park. During the freedom ride, buses will travel from 10 cities across America to raise awareness about the problems facing immigrant workers. ...

Vasquez slams efforts to aid illegal immigrants
9/25/2003. Idaho Statesman
Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez on Wednesday issued a searing condemnation of efforts by Idaho�s congressional delegation to support legislation to help illegal immigrants. �I am accusing Larry Craig, Mike Crapo, Butch Otter and Mike Simpson of collaborating with the unarmed enemy invading America,� Vasquez wrote in a news release issued on his official commissioner stationery. �All for a vote to stay in office.� ...

Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride: 400 locals turn out to welcome 2 busloads
9/25/2003. The Tucson Citizen
Bishop Kicanas conducts an hourlong ceremony at St. Augustine in English and Spanish as cross-country travelers stop in Tucson yesterday. FRANCISCO MEDINA/Tucson Citizen Amanda Figueroa and Guillermo Roacho, both of Los Angeles, embrace and comfort each other in the rain yesterday morning as they and several hundred marchers participated in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride rally. �Andale! Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas urged participants of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride yesterday when the cross-country travelers made a stop in Tucson to attend a special Mass and rally. "Come on, move," Kicanas repeated during the hourlong Mass at St. Augustine Cathedral, which he conducted in both English and Spanish. "The people want rights and dignity."...

Cross-country campaign for immigrant rights stops in Reno
9/25/2003. The Reno-Gazette Journal
As immigrants on a cross-country bus campaign for equal rights told their stories Wednesday during a rally in Reno, Jessica Ramirez, a nursing student, listened and thought about her experiences. The roughly 250 people rallying at the University of Nevada, Reno are part of a national call for an easier path to citizenship, safer and fairer working conditions, and the reunion of families separated because of immigration....

Freedom riders head to Washington to push for changes in worker treatment
9/25/2003. The Pasadena Citizen
Immigrant workers are packing up for a trek east that they hope will help level the playing field when it comes to workers' rights. Numerous buses from 10 U.S. cities, including Houston, are leaving this week to travel to Washington, D.C., where dozens will lobby for better treatment of immigrant workers. Some buses, depending on the distance they have to travel, have already left....

Ride echoes the campaigns of the civil rights movement
9/24/2003. Workday Minnesota
Just over 40 years ago, the civil rights movement inaugurated the "Freedom Rides"--busloads of African-Americans and whites campaigning for equal rights nationwide. Now the labor movement is extending that to immigrants. ...

Freedom ride comes to Toledo
9/24/2003. The News-Messenger
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee and the AFL-CIO are bringing the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride to Toledo Sunday. "Our goal is to get people to embrace immigrants here in peace and to understand that immigrants want to contribute to the greatness of this country," said Beatriz Maya, education director of FLOC. ...

Freedom Riders make Walla Walla stop
9/24/2003. Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Being a good citizen doesn't necessarily mean being an American. That's the message Immigrant Workers Freedom Riders, on two buses from Portland and Seattle, are spreading across America to Washington, D.C., and New York. Along the ride, buses from 10 major cities filled with immigrants and supporters will make more than 100 stops as they roll through 42 states on their way to the U.S. Capitol. ...

'Freedom Riders' Hope Road to Change Runs Through Yakima
9/24/2003. Yakima-Herald
Cheering immigration-rights activists and union organizers clapped and chanted Tuesday morning as a bus bound for Washington, D.C., pulled up to St. Joseph's Catholic Church....