On Thursday evening, at the San Francisco headquarters of the Service Employees International Union Local 87, some fifty immigrant workers and activists gathered at a hastily organized party to watch Barack Obama’s televised speech about his plans to implement executive actions protecting millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. S.E.I.U. Local 87 represents janitors, many of whom are undocumented. On the walls hung banners that seemed to have been mounted well before this event. One read REUNITE FAMILIES. Another bore the text of the Emma Lazarus sonnet inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.
“My fellow Americans, tonight I’d like to talk with you about immigration,” Obama began, on a TV screen at the front of the room. Many at the union headquarters, some American and some not, watched with dispassionate, tired expressions, placards with slogans resting against their chests.
via The Immigrants Excluded by Obama’s New Plan – The New Yorker.