Reverend Luis Cortes, president of International Hope, stands in front of the lectern and says we should ask people in Latin American countries to pray for us, for the immigrants; it's not us who always have to pray for them. He adds that if the Russians, the Asians and the Africans also pray, a global request would be on its way.

After a couple of priests emphasize that every human being has the right to seek his place in the world, Jill Flóres, an American married to a Mexican and mother of two, renders the first testimony indicating that they are at risk of seeing their family break if her husband gets deported to Ciudad Juárez.

Debora Taker, a nurse from Trinidad and Tobago, who's been separated from her children for four years, says she cannot return because here she is an independent person who sustains herself, something that was impossible to achieve back home. With tears in her eyes she says that her children's father died two years ago and that his brother is not doing a good job in taking care of them, especially because Katerina, her daughter, is sick. "I'm a good person; I just want a better life for myself and my children."

Around me I see Hispanic women with American men but some couples of Hispanic men with American women can also be seen. Over the voice of another man who takes the pulpit, the crying of babies in strollers and on their parent's arms are heard, as other children play around. A girl drinks from her baby bottle sitting on her father's lap; she holds a teddy bear in her hands.

An Argentinean girl reads a letter from behalf of another girl named Anita, who has been living for eight years in the United States but cannot go to college for not having her papers in order. "If she could, she would get wherever she wanted in life; because Anita is like that. But they don't let her," she ends up saying while I think that here we are all immigrants or descended from them. Everybody came seeking a better life as Anita, Debora, Mr. Flores, the hundreds who fill the church and the millions who are outside seeking the American dream, a dream started by the Quakers, the Pilgrims and other groups who came looking for a new world.

 "Congressman (Luis) Gutierrez is family. He's ours," says Revered Cortez. "He's gone from coast to coast promoting immigration reforms," he adds introducing him.

 "We will continue to go from city to city until the president listens to us," says Congressman Gutierrez from the pulpit, wearing a khaki suit and an orange tie. "What's important is to have started the project. The cities we've visited have increased, and it's not that I don't want to be home on the weekends," he says with a sad voice, "but that there are people who will not return to their homes at all."

He says that they were mistreated when he came with his parents from Puerto Rico to Chicago and no one stood to defend them. He does not want that experience to get repeated for others. "We will not keep silent, we will defend these families," he says and a strong applause is heard.

 "When we have soldiers fighting in Iraq and their families are being deported something is wrong with the immigration system," he adds. He says goodbye by affirming the system is too rigid and is broken. "The government should not separate what God has joined. There is great love, affection and hope in Barack Obama, but he also has to respond to what he promised."

After a batch of photos, the Senator leaves, a singer takes the pulpit and then some mariachis sing. The audience sings with them, there is an atmosphere of joy, but everyone knows that the opposition is strong, the road is long and these are just the first steps.