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Supporters with Fast for Families rally with their speakers during a media stop in downtown Henderson as part of a nationwide bus tour Friday, Feb. 28, 2014. L.E.Baskow

By Tovin Lapan (contact)

Friday, Feb. 28, 2014 | 7:24 p.m.

Fast for Families, a national campaign advocating for immigration reform, visited Southern Nevada on Friday, picking up fellow hunger strikers and proponents for congressional action along the way.

In November, Fast for Families sought to catalyze the immigration debate when Eliseo Medina of the Service Employees International Union, Dae Joong DJ Yoon of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, Rudy Lopez of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement and Cristian Avila of Mi Familia Vota participated in a hunger strike on the National Mall, abstaining from all nourishment except for water, for 22 days.

Avila spoke at a press conference Friday morning across the street from the Henderson Detention Center, the main facility in Nevada for housing immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Inaction is not an option, he said. There were a lot of ups and downs in 2013 for the movement. It was like a roller coaster. The fast created a lot of momentum, and we are building on that momentum with the bus tour. Congress will get the message, from community after community, people are committed to seeing reform happen.

Avila, 23, has received a work permit under the deferred action for childhood arrivals program, but his parents are still living in the country illegally. He said the 26 pounds he lost during the winter fast were nothing compared with the sacrifice his parents and others have made in search of a better life for their children.

Immigration reform was dubbed a top priority by the Obama administration after the 2012 election. And a bill addressing border security, guest workers, high-skilled labor and the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally did pass the Senate the following June, but stalled in the House.

Link:

Immigration advocates go hungry to send message to Washington