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Hundreds Rally in Georgetown for Immigration Reform

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Hundreds of immigration reform supporters gathered in Georgetown yesterday as part of a nationwide set of rallies to get Congress to move on the issue.

Claudia Pena Porretti, executive director of La Esperanza, a non-profit agency that helps Hispanics in Sussex County, said that she believed the reform effort has stalled.

She told the Wilmington News Journal that it’s been six months since the election and she had expected there was going to be stronger movement some change.

Amelia Rosa Gonzalez, who addressed the crowd, said that her husband came to the U.S on a work visa but was deported in 2008 after being in the country for 17 years.

She noted that it has been five years since her children have seen their father but has faith that her husband will return but only if there is immigration reform.

Meanwhile, the National Chicken Council, a trade organization which includes Perdue Foods and other poultry producers, backs an occupational visa to allow them to bring in foreign workers for years at a time.

But Julie DeYoung, a Perdue spokeswoman, told the paper that her company has not taken a formal position.

And Bill Satterfield, director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc., said that his organization has not had any discussions on the legislation leaving the issue to the National Chicken Council.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.