I got to field the final question of yesterday’s press conference in support of the Campaign for Fairness, Respect and Civil Rights.

It was, “Does your gut tell you that all the people on the other side of this issue are racists?”

And my answer was something along the lines of, “No movement is a monolith, and so people on the other side are driven by a variety of different feelings and ideas. Sadly, racism still plays a large role in our society, so I’m sure that it motivates some people. But I don’t think my colleagues or most of their supporters are racist, and I can’t speak the the dispositions of every last person involved.”

Well, anyway. I stand by that answer — some people are racist, and some are not. And now I’ve got a whole inbox full of emails like this as evidence:

Rep. Segal;

I’m amazed that you are in support of this Campaign for Fairness. Unless I am missing something in your biography, you should be part of the group of angry white men.

I want to voice my frustration and disgust with people like yourself who cannot see that this country is going down the drain. We are being bled dry.

RIFuture has coverage of the legislative package that we unveiled at the Assembly today:

Rep. Grace Diaz, Sen. Juan Pichardo, Sen. Charles Levesque, Rep. David Segal, and Rep. Joe Almeida will join Immigrants United at a news conference to unveil the Campaign for Fairness, Respect and Civil Rights - a legislative platform that promotes racial and economic equality for every Rhode Islander.

The platform consists of 10 bills that promote community safety, civil rights and economic opportunity and strength. Attendees will include the International Institute of Rhode Island, the American Friends Service Committee; Comite de Inmigrantes en Accion; English for Action; Fuerza Laboral; Immigrant Students in Action; RI Jobs with Justice; Ocean State Action; Olneyville Neighborhood Association; Progreso Latino; R.I. Affiliate, ACLU and the R.I. Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

This from the ColorLines RaceWire:

Breakthrough is taking the fight for immigrants rights viral! The video game called ICED uses a multiracial cast of young avatars with varying degrees of citizenship to teach the video game players about the hard decisions many immigrants face everyday. “Make poor decisions, you will be detained with no respect for your human rights.”

It’s kind of like GTA, but cooler…

This is too horrible:

A 14-day-old infant traveling here for heart surgery died at Honolulu International Airport on Friday after he, his mother and a nurse were detained by immigration officials in a locked room, a lawyer for the boy’s family said.

The Honolulu medical examiner’s office yesterday identified the infant as Michael Futi of Tafuna, American Samoa’s largest village, which is located on the east coast of Tutuila Island. Autopsy findings have been deferred.

Holy shit! Facebook just went bilingual:

Ahora hispanohablantes en todo el mundo pueden unirse a Facebook. Conéctate con todos tus amigos, en cualquier idioma.

Puedes cambiar tu preferencia de idioma aqui.

Usa el buscador de amigos para ver si mas de tus amigos se [h]an unido y invita a todos tus amigos hispanohablantes a que se registren.

I should totally get class credit for stalking people in Spanish.

p.s. — This is where that asshole Thomas Friedman would say, “The world is flat.”

A number of people have been decrying his deportation.

PROVIDENCE — Days after the arrest of an illegal Guatemalan immigrant and subsequent apparent suicide of a housemate at the same address, a Guatemalan diplomat, the head of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and community activists yesterday blamed “the harsh policies of immigration” with destroying families and “terrorizing a community.”

Immigration agents arrested Mynor Montufar last Friday, two days after he received media attention as the father of Rhode Island’s first baby of 2008, and another man, Rodrigo Perez, as Perez was allegedly trying to flee the premises.

Quick history lesson for the jingoists and immigrant haters (who, I also like to think, aren’t reading this site).   WE played a huge part in turning Guatemala into a place that people wanted, and needed, to flee.