Durbin: More Needs To Be Done To Help Child Immigrants
(CBS) -- Elected officials addressed thousands during the People's Mass at Fiesta Del Sol in honor of dreamers, immigrants and the 47,000 children held at detention centers across the nation.
WBBM's Kimberly Easton reports a crowd of thousands listened intently to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Senator Dick Durbin. Both Emanuel and Durbin assured the Latino community they will not turn their backs on children who are fleeing a dangerous situation.
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"We are here today at Fiesta Del Sol. This is a Mass dedicated to the dreamers. The action that was taken by the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday was reprehensible. This idea of calling for the deportation of these young men and women is cruel," Durbin said.
Durbin says more should be done to help children crossing the border into the U.S. on their own.
"These are young men and women who have come to the United States not by their own choice, who have lived here, they have lived in the United States and now they are asking for a chance to prove themselves."
Emanuel said also told the crowd one or more sites that can hold up to at least 1,000 will be used to treat immigrant children fairly and humanely.
"Everyone of us are children, or grandchildren or great-grandchildren whose families at one place or another dreamed of a promise of America and the thousands of children on the border, who left the violence of Central America, we welcome them to the city of Chicago," said Emanuel.
