Proponents of immigration reform gathered in Portland to throw their weight behind a new immigration reform bill being introduced in Washington today. Representatives of immigrants' rights groups convened at the offices of U.S. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. They were there to deliver a letter to Pingree's representative urging her to support the new immigration reform bill.

"This is a packet for Congresswoman Pingree, which includes a letter from several advocates thanking her for her support so far for immigration reform, and sharing stories of some of the hardships that people in Maine have endured because of our broken immigration system," said Beth Stickney, as she delivered the letter.

Stickney is with the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Group, which provides legal aid to Maine's low-income immigrants. "We call on our delegation to really lead the fight to get realistic and comprehensive reform of our immigration laws," she said.

Currently leading the fight in Washington is Democratic Illinois Congressman Luis Guttierez, the chairman of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the man behind the latest immigration reform bill.

Today's stunt was one of many across the country in support of the Guterriez bill, which is intended to help immigrants to obtain legal status and, say supporters such as Reverend Virginia Marie Rincon, to prevent tearing families apart. "We need a policy that keeps in mind that the separation of families is not the answer," she said. "Family re-unification needs to be a top prioirty of any immigration reform plan."

Rincon is with Tengo Voz, a grassroots organization set up to help Latino women in the greater Portland area. She cites the plight of one young immigrant woman named Emily, whose story is echoed by many who come to Maine illegally from overseas, to find work.
Rincon says once in Maine, Emily married and had a child, and then one day got a call saying her husband had been detained as an illegal immigrant.

"Suddenly the family is torn apart and the young woman now has the enormous responsibility of maintaining a home, finding enough work to put food on the table, and now faced with being both mother and father," Rincon said. "Emily, alias name, is one of these women. She's only 22-years-old and speaks no English. And most nights she's up all night because her 2-year-old still cries all night asking for her daddy."

Beth Stickney of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Group says the goal of the activists is to help undocumented immigrants on the path toward legalization, "so that they can come out of the shadows and become tax-paying, fully contributing members of our society as they so desperately want to do."

But it's the prospect of legalizing millions of undocumented, or illegal, immigrants that has the bill's opponents worried. "This bill, like all other amnesty bills, is granting amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens," says Bob Dane of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, based in Washington, D.C.

"It will be sugar-coated with a little bit of promised enforcement, but at the end of the day it is amnesty, and amnesty is fundamentally unfair to those who have come here legally," Dane says. "And most importantly, it's fundamentally unfair to those who have come to the United States, and played by the rules."

Dane feels the bill will face a tough time in Congress. "It's going to be a tough punt for this administration to convince Americans to accept a massive amnesty bill, and to flood the market with more foreign cheap labor, when the economy is tanking and millions of Americans are losing their jobs."

"If the bill runs into any difficulties it will because people are playing partisan games," says Ben Chin of the Maine People's Alliance. Chin says the bill has a good chance of passage, since more than two-thirds of Democrats in Congress, and 50 percent of Republicans, are in support.

"We think that it's actually very possible to move this through," Chin says. "President Obama has said he wants to move this through beginning this year, the speaker of the house said they want to move it through this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that, so the political will is there, it's just whether or not we're going to put aside the games."

The Maine Republican Party did not return a request for comment on this story by air time.