Spanish-Language Media Shifts Tactics in Fight for Immigration Reform

June 15, 2007 — -- Popular Spanish-language DJ Eddie "Piolín" Sotelo, in private meetings with several congressmen today, hand delivered more than a million letters today signed in support of immigration reform.

Thursday, joined by Sens. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Sotelo pleaded with Congress to swiftly pass the immigration reform bill that hangs over it.

"Here I am with more than 1 million letters from legal residents and U.S. citizens that represent millions of voices. They are voices of men, women and children who are asking you to look deep into your hearts to bring those millions out of the shadows and establish a legal, workable immigration system," Sotelo said in a Thursday press conference.

Sotelo's voice is familiar not only on the airwaves but also on the immigration circuit. Rated by the Los Angeles Times as one of Southern California's 100 most-powerful people, the 37-year-old Sotelo is largely credited for the massive turnout during the 2006 pro-immigration rallies.

Now a legal resident of the United States, Sotelo took a personal interest in the rallies and in the immigration bill pending before Congress, because he himself arrived on U.S. soil in 1986 as an illegal immigrant.

Sotelo gathered the letters on a cross-country caravan trip to Washington with hundreds of people in tow behind him. He delivered them today after attending the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast with President Bush to lobby for "just and humane" immigration reform.

Sotelo's method of arrival, the cross-country caravan, demonstrates a shift in tactics for immigration advocates. Sotelo and others have moved away from the large protests that defined them early on in the movement, choosing lobbying and public relations campaigns that demonstrate the personal, more human side of immigration reform.

The caravan left last Sunday from Los Angeles and made stops in Albuquerque, N.M., Dallas, Chicago, arriving on Capitol Hill Thursday.