Phoenix:Thousands march to protest immigration legislation : AZ IMC

Thousands march to protest immigration legislation

The Arizona Republic
Mar. 24, 2006 12:20 PM

Upwards of 10,000 people marched this afternoon through central Phoenix to Sen. Jon Kyl's office to protest immigration legislation that they say is inhumane and punitive.

Authorities have blocked off sections of 24th Street as the demonstrators walked from St. Agnes Catholic Church near McDowell Road and 24th Street to Kyl's office on Camelback Road.

The marchers are protesting a congressional proposal to make illegal immigration a felony. Similar demonstrations are taking place today in Tucson, Los Angeles and Atlanta. advertisement

Kyl, along with fellow Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, backs a bill that in part would require workers to leave the U.S. to apply for temporary work permits.

The measure, approved by the House, would also impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal migrants and build a fence along about a third of the U-S border with Mexico.

The bill is to be voted on Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The rally is the largest in a string of grass-roots protests, marches and boycotts by Hispanics since 2004, when voters passed Proposition 200, a law that prohibits undocumented immigrants from voting or receiving certain public benefits.

The artilc that I just read at AZ Central.com quotes Phoenix Police as sestimating the crowd to be between 15,000 and 20,000 people. Read the article at

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0324immigrationmarch24-ON.html

Bet Minuteman honcho Stacey O'Connell's head just *exploded* at the sight of so many marchers!

Editor’s Note: Two weeks ago 300 to 500 thousand immigrants marched in Chicago. One local TV station described the protest this way:
"As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, the protesters - of Polish, Irish, Latino, Chinese and many other nationalities - gathered at Union Park, at Ashland Avenue and Lake Street, and marched to the Loop. From the air, it appeared to be an endless sea of demonstrators, flooding the streets to protest the recently-passed house bill, which would make it a crime to hire or even help undocumented immigrants. At the end of the day, organizers say it was more than half a million protesters. Police estimated the crowd at 300,000."
Yesterday, thousands took to the streets in Milwaukee, and today over 10,000 marched in Phoenix.

Another significant development is the student walkouts in Los Angeles. As I write, over 1,000 students are in the streets of Los Angeles marching. Tomorrow Los Angeles is expected to have a massive rally that could match or exceed the Chicago turnout.

The mainstream media is beginning to cover this, but they almost ignored hundreds of thousands in Chicago, let's see if they ignore Los Angeles as well.
--smg/TO
Go to Original

Immigrants Rising Up Against Immigration Reform Bill
By Tim Molloy
The Associated Press

Friday 24 March 2006

Thousands of people across the country protested Friday against legislation cracking down on illegal immigrants, with demonstrators in such cities as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta staging school walkouts, marches and work stoppages.

Congress is considering bills that would make it a felony to be illegally in the United States, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and erect fences along one-third of the US-Mexican border. The proposals have angered many Hispanics.

The Los Angeles demonstration led to fights between black and Hispanic students at one high school, but the protests were largely peaceful, authorities said.

Chantal Mason, a sophomore at George Washington Preparatory High, said black students jumped Hispanic students as they left classes to protest a bill passed the House in December that would make it a felony to be in the US illegally.

"It was horrible, horrible," Mason said. "It's ridiculous that a bunch of black students would jump on Latinos like that, knowing they're trying to get their freedom."

In Phoenix, police said 10,000 demonstrators marched to the office of Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, co-sponsor of a bill that would give illegal immigrants up to five years to leave the country. The turnout clogged a major thoroughfare.

"They're here for the American Dream," said Malissa Greer, 29, who joined a crowd estimated by police to be at least 10,000 strong. "God created all of us. He's not a God of the United States, he's a God of the world."

Kyl had no immediate comment on the rally.

At least 500 students at Huntington Park High School near Los Angeles walked out of classes in the morning. Hundreds of the students, some carrying Mexican flags, walked down the middle of Los Angeles streets, police cruisers behind them.

The students visited two other area high schools, trying to encourage students to join their protest, but the schools were locked down to keep students from leaving, said Los Angeles district spokeswoman Monica Carazo.

In Georgia, activists said tens of thousands of workers did not show up at their jobs Friday after calls for a work stoppage to protest a bill passed by the Georgia House on Thursday.

That bill, which has yet to gain Senate approval, would deny state services to adults living in the US illegally and impose a 5 percent surcharge on wire transfers from illegal immigrants.

Supporters say the Georgia measure is vital to homeland security and frees up limited state services for people legally entitled to them. Opponents say it unfairly targets workers meeting the demands of some of the state's largest industries.

Teodoro Maus, an organizer of the Georgia protest, estimated as many as 80,000 Hispanics did not show up for work. About 200 converged on the steps of the Georgia Capitol, some wrapped in Mexican flags and holding signs reading: "Don't panic, we're Hispanic" and "We have a dream, too."

Jennifer Garcia worried what would the proposal would do to her family. She said her husband is an illegal Mexican immigrant.

"If they send him back to Mexico, who's going to take care of them and me?" Garcia said of herself and her four children. "This is the United States. We need to come together and be a whole."

On Thursday, thousands of people filled the streets of Milwaukee for what was billed as "A Day Without Latinos" to protest efforts in Congress to target undocumented workers. Police estimated more than 10,000 people joined the demonstrations and march to downtown Milwaukee. Organizers put the number at 30,000.

Exploded? Hardly. Imagine the 20000 marchers in todays event........thats 4 days worth of illegal aliens that come across our nations border....everyday. 24/7. Why is it that these people who say they are so concerned with deaths in the deserts never do these protests in areas that Border Patrol have authority in? Its because there would be BP busses waiting for them at the end of the march.

These groups are marching because of what the Minutemen have started. MCDC is the reason the national debate of illegal immigration and reform is taking place. Do you think that Congressmen and Senators from all over the nation would be introducing strong new legislation if it were not the popular opinion? The reason elected officials are calling for deportation, criminalization of illegal aliens, border walls, and employer enforcement is due to US Citizen popular opinion.....not that of illegal aliens.

So, tens of thousands of illegal aliens and open borders lobbies and the Catholic Church are marching for human rights. You want no more deaths in the deserts? Build a wall that they cant cross. You want to be recognized in this country? Come here legally. You want a government that wants you? Provide us with something other than unskilled cheap labor and uneducated immigrants.

Most of those interviewed today at the march had no clue what the bills are under debate right now. They proudly waved the Mexican flag, chanted in Spanish, and demanded that they not be criminalized for being here illegally. I say, go back to you home nation and make the changes there in your own country, where it is needed. While you are complaining about being treated unfairly in my nation, earning more money than you deserve, getting free healthcare and education, and creating more American citizens; your nations..your homelands are falling apart. If you cared anything about your home nations, you do well to go there and protest to make change.

MCDC will be back on the borders in Arizona, Cali, NM and Texas starting April 1. Come to our Kick-Off Rally and see Randy Graff, Bill Montgomery, Don Goldwater, Russell Pearce, Bay Buchanan and Chris Simcox speak. Why is it that people running for office recognize MCDC? Its because we are for the rule of law. We provide aid and comfort to those we see that are in need, and then call Border Patrol. Its because our volunteers have the stronger voice....and they can vote.

20000 marchers today and I was still able to order lunch, get my car washed, work and even had running water and electricity.

Immigration Reform is just around the corner and it smells of deportation, walls, and orderly entrance into our lands. If they make it a felon to be here illegally, you might see 'Citizens Arrests' by the masses.

See you on the borders. Semper Vigilans.

Stacey O'Connell
AZ State Director
MCDC

Immigrants march in Phoenix, L.A. protest planned
Fri Mar 24, 2006 09:52 PM ET

PHOENIX (Reuters) - As many as 15,000 immigrants and supporters marched through Phoenix on Friday in the latest of a series of protests in major U.S. cities that seek to stop legislation seen as punitive to undocumented workers.
Los Angeles students also walked out of at least 20 county schools on Friday, protesting proposed extension of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, said a Los Angeles Unified School District spokesperson.

Some "hundreds of thousands" will march through downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, one organizer predicted, while Chicago police on March 10 estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 rallied to protest tough changes in immigration law.

In Phoenix, marchers were peaceful but boisterous, said city police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill. About 400 rallied in Tucson.

"Immigrant communities and groups across the country are coming together to send a loud and clear message to decision makers in Washington D.C. that we are not the enemy but part of the solution," said Jennifer Allen, executive director of Border Action Network in Phoenix.

Many of the protesters have focused on a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December. That bill, sponsored by Republican Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner, calls for tough border security and enforcement measures and would make it a federal crime, instead of a civil offense, for undocumented workers to live in the country.

It would also penalize people for helping illegal immigrants, drawing criticism in particular from church groups.

The U.S. Senate is set to take up immigration legislation next week. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, plans to bring to the floor similar border security and enforcement legislation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, is pushing his panel to draft legislation that would also create a temporary worker program and legalize some of the 12 million illegal aliens living in the United States.

Protesters such as Los Angeles march organizer Javier Rodriguez say the protests are to oppose Sensenbrenner's bill and press for legalization and citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the United States.

"It is a crusade to force the right-wing government to give us legalization, and we are not going to take anything less," he said. One marcher carried a sign with the slogan "The Sleeping Giant Woke Up," referring to the role of undocumented workers in American life.

Los Angeles police spokeswoman April Harding said a little more than 10,000 people were expected on Saturday.

The protests were part of rallies planned across the country in the next several days, with protests planned on April 10 in 10 cities.

On the other side of the political spectrum, a small group calling themselves the Minutemen, which began as an ad hoc organization patrolling a small section of the U.S.-Mexican border, is demanding enforcement of U.S. immigration law. It also opposes President George W. Bush's proposed guest-worker program.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

I am originally from New mexico, so i grew up in the southwest and have MANY MANY Latino/Hispano friends. I just want to say that what I saw yesterday made me cry ... GOOD for you... Keep up the fight down there and we will keep up the fight in Portland OR... Thanks you for showing the country that the Hispanic/Latino poulation is NOT one to be silenced... Together we CAN make changes...

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0325twomarches.html

20,000 in Phoenix rally for migrants
City's biggest demonstration ever part of national wave; marchers call for legalizing undocumented immigrants

Yvonne Wingett and Susan Carroll
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 25, 2006 12:00 AM

Tens of thousands of Latinos marched up and down 24th Street on Friday, protesting federal legislation that would criminalize undocumented immigrants. Police said the rally, which snarled traffic and angered some business owners, was the largest demonstration in Phoenix history.

The show of might surprised organizers as largely immigrant construction workers, students and community activists took the day off and jammed the street, marching north from St. Agnes Catholic Church near McDowell Road to Camelback Road and Republican Sen. Jon Kyl's office.

Phoenix police estimated the crowd to be upward of 20,000; the rally coincided with a march in Tucson, where about 400 to 800 more marched to Kyl's office there.

During the loud but peaceful midmorning rallies, demonstrators vented frustration over controversial U.S. House Bill 4437, sponsored by Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner. The bill would, in part, make it a felony to be in the country illegally.

"I took today off of work," said Demirel Montiel, 29, who marched with his wife and three children. "I'm here for all the illegal people. Everybody's tired, tired that people think we're criminals. If you drive, you're a criminal. If you work, you're a criminal. If you're Mexican, you're a criminal."

The march comes as U.S.-born Latinos and immigrants in cities around the country have demonstrated for immigration reform and plan massive rallies this weekend in Los Angeles, New York and Denver.

The demonstrations coincide with the U.S. Senate's debate Tuesday on immigration legislation. Its Judiciary Committee, which Kyl serves on, must finish writing the legislation on Monday. Before lawmakers left for recess last week, they reached a tentative deal that would allow the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country to earn legal status. Political experts and activists within Arizona's pro-immigrant movement said the series of marches is a sign that momentum is building for immigration reform.

Getting organized

The push for reform in Arizona started years ago, but organizers said the first sign of a significant shift was a 5,000-strong rally at the state Capitol earlier this year. The momentum has continued to build, advocates said, along with a growing coalition of humanitarian, environmental, church and union groups that have signed on to oppose the legislation that would penalize undocumented immigrants.

At least 16 immigration advocacy groups, about 60 evangelical churches of several denominations and a weeks-long Spanish and English media blitz galvanized marchers. A handful of local organizers earlier this year met with other activists from around the country in California where they developed a coordinated strategy to address what they perceive to be a growing anti-illegal-immigration sentiment.

Out of that, they said, came Friday's rally in Phoenix, the rally in Chicago, which drew upward of 100,000, and Thursday's march in Milwaukee.

"There's an urgency now," said Jennifer Allen, a founder of the Arizona-based Border Action Network, which organized the Tucson rally. "We're putting forward our hopes and our dreams and our resistance . . . to bills that would criminalize pretty much everyone here."

Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has introduced a companion bill to HB 4437 in the Senate that also would make it a felony to be in the United States without proper paperwork.

Other proposals in Washington include a bill by Kyl and GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas that would require workers to leave the United States to apply for temporary-work permits. A bipartisan bill by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, seeks to stem illegal immigration by creating more ways for workers to enter legally.

Protesters, waving signs that read, "I am American," largely called for immigration reform that would legalize undocumented immigrants.

Megaphones, Mexican and U.S. flags and the rallying cry "Sí se puede" (Yes, we can) empowered the demonstrators. The march began with a 9 a.m. rally at St. Agnes. The trek north began just after 11 a.m., gaining bodies with every block as news helicopters hovered overhead and Popsicle peddlers sold cold treats.

The demonstration snarled traffic and virtually paralyzed businesses along 24th Street, a strip of Latino-owned carnicerias (butcher shops), llanterias (tire shops) and furniture import stores. It drew criticism from some owners, applause from others. Many marchers said construction crew supervisors, landscape-business owners, and even school principals, gave them the day off so they could march.

'Sleeping giant'

"I lost $200 today," said 38-year-old Felix Lopez, a Mexico City native and concrete layer. "I don't care. I want to help my people. The (Sensenbrenner) law is bad for immigrants. It's time for the sleeping giant to wake."

The mass of people rallied to Kyl's office at 22nd Street and Camelback Road, where organizers dropped off a one-page letter urging him to oppose the Sensenbrenner bill.

Kyl was unavailable for comment after the rally but responded with a prepared statement: "I have advocated for the adoption of a comprehensive plan that increases border security, provides a temporary-worker program, ensures enforcement of our laws at the border and at the workplace, and deals with those illegal immigrants already in the country."

Construction workers and professionals from office buildings watched the scene from several stories up as police cars looped the crowd back around from the Biltmore area to St. Agnes for a rally.

"This is only the beginning," said Alfredo Gutierrez, a former state lawmaker. "I think it's bigger than any anti-war demonstration we've had. I've never seen anything like it."

In Tucson, 400 to 800 protesters gathered outside Kyl's office, lining the shoulder of a busy road on the north side of the city. They waved American flags and carried hand-painted signs that read, "Humanitarian aid is never a crime." Construction workers, still wearing painting coveralls, stopped by on their lunch breaks.

A mother's view

Estella Cruz, a 30-year-old housewife, brought her daughters, ages 3 and 5. She and her husband, undocumented immigrants from Mexico, have lived in Tucson for 10 years. Cruz's husband, who works for a tiling company, couldn't get time off work.

So she and the girls (their 8-year-old son was in school) came out to show support for immigration reform that she hoped would give her family a chance at normalcy.

"We're good people," she said. "We belong to a church. We give money to the Red Cross. We pay our taxes. We have car insurance.

"We really would want to be able to go back to Mexico and visit our families and be able to come back here (legally)," she said.

Immigration fight hits the streets
By Paul Giblin, Tribune
March 25, 2006

Thousands of people troubled by restrictive border policies in Washington, and emboldened by the Valley’s Spanish media, marched Friday in central Phoenix calling for federal immigration law reform.

As many as 20,000 marchers representing a spectrum of ages and ethnic backgrounds waved U.S. and Mexican, as well as Salvadoran and Guatemalan, flags as a rare mass rally in Arizona surprised police and organizers alike.

Marchers filled a solid mile along North 24th Street south of East Camelback Road at midday.

“The purpose is loud and clear,” said Elias Bermudez, president of Inmigrantes Sin Fronteras, or Immigrants Without Borders, the march’s primary organizer. “We need immigration reform and we need it now, because the illegal immigration problem in the United States is getting totally out of hand.”

The crowd caused traffic gridlock and forced portions of Indian School, Thomas and McDowell roads and Loop 202 to close.

“I’ve been involved in protests like this for nearly 10 years, and I’ve never seen anything this big,” said Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, who rallied the crowd.

The focal point of the protest: The proposed Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005.

It establishes mandatory jail time for crimes relating to illegal entry into the country. The measure, HR4437, is scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.

Several competing measures also figure into the mix. Among them are a bill co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.; and another co-sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.

The debate is energized on all sides, said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

Taxpayers, particularly in border states, are tired of shouldering the financial burden unchecked immigration has on health care, education and the justice system, Flake said.

The business community wants continued access to an inexpensive labor force.

Immigrants are concerned by their lack of legal status.

In addition, there’s real anti-immigration sentiments both in Congress and in the country overall, Flake said.

“What I hope happens is we get comprehensive reform, something that deals with not just the border, but the border plus interior enforcement plus a guest worker plan,” Flake said.

On Thursday, President Bush called for lawmakers to tone down the rhetoric. He also called for a guest worker plan.

HR4437 includes no such feature. The measure, which tightens control of the nation’s borders, would cost $1.9 billion in four years, including $115 million for new prisons, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Flake said, “I think the House wanted to make a statement, rather than make policy, because what we passed was really no solution.”

An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S.

The Phoenix march coincided with ones in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Tucson. Phoenix police Sgt. Andy Hill said local organizers expected a turnout of about 3,000.

However organizers were quickly overwhelmed as demonstrators spilled into the streets, closing roads and tying up traffic.

The march put a face on those affected by immigration policy, said Alfredo Gutierrez, a lobbyist, Hispanic activist and former state lawmaker. Young professionals, teenagers and mothers pushing baby strollers marched alongside day laborers.

“It’s important to know who the crowd was,” Gutierrez said. “The anti-immigrant movement has characterized us as a bunch of moneygrubbing thugs. And I think the human images that will be on television today and hopefully in photographs in newspapers tomorrow will put the lie to that. These were people wanting to work.”

Protesters walked north on 24th Street, then doubled back after a small group delivered a letter to Kyl’s office on Camelback.

Kyl was not present to receive the letter, because he spent the day in Tucson meeting with the Southern Arizona Hispanic Leadership Coalition, among other groups. The coalition formally endorsed him Friday in his bid for re-election.

“I have advocated for the adoption of a comprehensive plan that increases border security, provides a temporary worker program, ensures enforcement of our laws at the border and at the workplace, and deals with those illegal immigrants already in the country,” said Kyl, a member of the Judiciary Committee, in a statement.

The magnitude of the rally underscored the failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to deal with immigration, said Jim Pederson, a Democrat running against Kyl.

“My question is: What’s taking it so long? I mean, this issue has been a pressure cooker for a long, long time and it’s erupted today,” he said.

The march ended with a rally in the parking lot of St. Agnes Catholic Church, near McDowell Road.

There, organizers called the march a success as chants of “Sí, se puede” turned into “Sí, se pudo.”

“Yes, we can” became “Yes, we did.”

The march brought together about 20 advocacy groups, said Linda Herrera of Unidos en Arizona. “This is only the beginning,” she told the crowd in Spanish.

The turnout also was in response to immigration reform measures in the Arizona Legislature, organizers said. There have been nearly 40 proposals introduced so far this year, from naming English as the state’s official language to constructing a wall along the border with Mexico.

Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who has emerged as one of the leading opponents of the country’s immigration policies, said the large turnout was to be expected. “I don’t blame these people. They just want amnesty,” he said.

He called the event “outrageous” because so many illegal immigrants should not be allowed to walk down a major Phoenix street without fear of arrest.

“Shame on the city of Phoenix for not enforcing the law,” said Pearce, who has introduced more than a dozen immigration bills this session.

That sentiment was shared by Biltmore area resident Michelle Clark, who discovered all routes to her home blocked by marchers.

“They have no rights. They’re illegal and they’re in our country. We want deportations,” she said. “We’re going to have war.”

Contact Paul Giblin by email, or phone (480) 970-2331

New York Times
Mar. 27, 2006 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - When members of the Senate Judiciary Committee meet today to wrestle with the fate of 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, they can expect to do so against a backdrop of thousands of demonstrators, including clergy members wearing handcuffs and immigrant leaders in T-shirts that declare, "We are America."

But if recent events hold true, they will be facing more than that.

Rallies by immigrants across the nation have attracted crowds that have astonished even their organizers. More than a half-million demonstrators marched in Los Angeles on Saturday, as many as 300,000 in Chicago on March 10, and tens of thousands in Phoenix, Denver, Milwaukee and smaller cities.

The demonstrations embody a surging constituency for an overhaul of immigration laws that is being pressed as never before by immigrants, who were long thought too fearful of deportation to risk so public a display.

"It's unbelievable," said Partha Banerjee, director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network, who was in Washington on Sunday to help plan more nationwide protests on April 10. "People are joining in so spontaneously, it's almost like the immigrants have risen. I would call it a civil rights movement reborn in this country."

What has galvanized demonstrators, especially Mexicans and other Latin Americans who predominate among undocumented immigrants, is proposed legislation, passed by the House, that would make it a felony to be in the country without proper papers, and a federal crime to aid undocumented immigrants.

The measure shows the clout of another growing force: a groundswell of anger against illegal immigration that is especially potent in border states and swing-voting suburbs where the numbers and social costs of undocumented immigrants are felt mostly acutely.

"It's an entirely predictable example of the law of unintended consequences," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, who helped organize the Chicago rally and who said he was shocked by the size of the turnout. "The Republican Party made a decision to use illegal immigration as the wedge issue of 2006, and the Mexican community was profoundly offended."

Until the immigrant rallies, groups demanding stringent enforcement-only legislation seemed to have the upper hand in Washington. The Judiciary Committee was deluged by faxes and e-mail messages from such groups as NumbersUSA, which calls for a reduction in immigration and claims 237,000 activists nationwide, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has long opposed any form of legalizing undocumented immigrants, including a guest-worker program advocated by President Bush.

Dan Stein, president of the federation, acknowledged the unexpected outpouring of protesters, but downplayed its significance. "It's a lot of people by any standard," he said. "But these are a lot of people who don't vote, can't vote and certainly aren't voting Republican if they do vote."

But others, noting that foreign-born Latinos had voted for President Bush in 2004 at a 40 percent greater rate than those Latinos born in the United States, said that by pursuing the proposed legislation, Republican leaders may have squandered the party's inroads with this emerging bloc of voters and pushed them into the Democratic camp.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that of more than 11 million undocumented immigrants, 78 percent are from Mexico or other Latin American countries. Many have children and other relatives who are U.S. citizens. Under the House measure, such family members, like other citizens including clergy, social workers and lawyers, would risk prison if they helped an undocumented immigrant remain in the United States.

"Imagine turning more than 11 million people into criminals, and anyone who helps them," said Angela Sanbrano, executive director of the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles, an organizer of Saturday's rally there.

One of the institutions behind the protests has been the Catholic Church, which has unleashed priests and parishioners to push for the legalization of undocumented immigrants.

Last Saturday downtown Chicago was paralysed by tens of thousands of people marching for immigrants' rights. Joshua Hoyt examines this growing movement.

On Friday, March 10, 2006 Chicago’s downtown was paralysed by an immigrant march estimated at more than 100,000 people. They carried hand-lettered signs saying: “We are America,” “My Mexican immigrant son died in Iraq,” “I’m a dishwasher—not a criminal,” and “Don’t deport my parents.” The peaceful crowd stretched two and half miles, from Union Park on the West Side to their destination in Federal Plaza. No immigrant justice march like this has happened in Illinois history since some 80,000 immigrants marched down State Street demanding an 8-hour workday in 1886.

The Chicago march is part of a growing tsunami of immigrant protest across the nation. Last week 5,000 Mexicans gathered in Oregon; on Tuesday, March 6, some 30,000 Latinos from the Washington, D.C. area rallied on the U.S. Capitol steps.

The marches are tied to the U.S. Senate debate on immigration reform this month. The actions of the Senate are the last hope to win reasonable and workable reforms. There is no doubt that any bill reported out will include increased enforcement provisions. The question is whether they will also include measures that reunite divided immigrant families; create a guest worker program for the nation’s future labor needs; and – most divisively – include an eventual path to earned citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented working and paying taxes in the U.S.

But the marchers are also protesting the harshly punitive enforcement provisions of Rep. James Sensenbrenner’s (R-WI) HR 4437, an “enforcement only” approach to immigration reform that was hurriedly rammed through the House of Representatives just before Christmas. This law makes the 11 million undocumented dishwashers and nannies “aggravated criminal felons” and turns priests and nurses into criminals for “aiding and abetting” the undocumented.

The Chicago march is the work of both emerging Mexican immigrant leaders and also a crowning triumph for lifelong Mexican American activists. But the Illinoisan who is most responsible for kicking the sleeping giant, and who has the most to lose in the long term, was not present.

Illinois Congressman and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert made a decision last fall to use “illegal immigration” as the Republican Party’s next emotionally charged wedge issue. The political calculation is that the resentment and latent racism felt towards our new Mexican neighbors can be demagogued for political advantage this year, dividing the Democrats and keeping the House of Representatives in Republican hands. Other political opportunists across the nation, including perennial candidate Jim Oberweis in Illinois, have piled on. If “gay marriage” worked in 2004, then why not “illegals” in ’06?

However, in what appears to be an entirely predictable example of the law of unintended consequences, the immigrant communities in general and the Mexican community in particular have declined to allow themselves to be passive punching bags.

There are few communities in the U.S. that work harder at lower pay and in worse conditions than the Mexican community. They do this by and large with few complaints and in exchange for the promise that their children might live better lives than they will. But it is also a community with deep pride that does not appreciate having its hard work being denigrated by being called criminals or terrorists. The signs on Friday said it all: “We are America.”

The last big spasm of immigrant bashing was in California in the mid 1990’s by Governor Pete Wilson and Proposition 187. Mexican immigrants responded by first marching, and then becoming citizens and voting Democratic in record numbers.

Hastert’s short-sighted strategy has gored the Republican business community that understands our nation’s labor needs and energized a national Roman Catholic immigrant justice campaign so muscular that last week Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles threatened massive civil disobedience. But the anti-immigrant demagoguery has also launched an unprecedented national political mobilization by the Mexican and immigrant community. Oops!

A little noted fact from the ’04 presidential election was that socially conservative immigrant Latinos were 40% more likely to vote for President Bush than U.S. born Latinos. Now President Bush’s and Karl Rove’s carefully crafted and successful Hispanic outreach strategy is so much shredded lettuce.

What does this mean in Illinois? There are 348,000 legal immigrants in Illinois currently eligible to become U.S. citizens. If a substantial percentage of these folks now take the steps to become U.S. citizens and the immigrant Latinos are cemented into the “Blue” column of voters, it changes the political balance of power in Illinois for the next generation. Regardless, any short-term political gain to be made from the “Kick the illegals" strategy will likely lead to disastrous long-term pain for the Republican Party.

And, as if the point needed further emphasis for Speaker Hastert (whose district is now 25% Latino), flyers distributed at Friday’s march announced ten upcoming workshops to assist immigrants become citizens. Oh…and the motto of the march? “Hoy Marchamos! Manana Votamos!” (“We March Today. Tomorrow we Vote!”)

- Joshua Hoyt is the Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a statewide organization committed to the full participation of immigrant in civic life.

More than a million march in Los Angeles, other US cities in defense of immigrant rights

By Ramon Valle and Rafael Azul
27 March 2006

In the largest demonstration in California’s history, well over half a million people marched through downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, March 25, in defense of immigrant rights and to protest the government attacks on immigrants, especially undocumented workers.

The demonstration was the culmination of two weeks of protest demonstrations against new federal legislation, passed by the House of Representatives and scheduled to be taken up Monday by the US Senate, which would make illegal immigration a felony crime, as well as criminalizing all those who help illegal immigrants—including social service and charity workers who operate soup kitchens, homeless shelters and emergency clinics.

The scale of the demonstrations has staggered the political establishment in the United States, while going largely unreported by the American media. Not until the mammoth turnout in Los Angeles Saturday did the national television networks even report on the protests.

Another 50,000 people marched on Saturday in Denver, Colorado, in what was likely the largest demonstration in that city’s history. Twenty thousand marched in Phoenix, Arizona, rallying outside the offices of US Senator Jon Kyl, who has introduced his own version of the punitive anti-immigrant legislation. It was the largest demonstration in the history of the state. Thousands more marched in cities as far-flung as Charlotte, North Carolina; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Sacramento, California. In the biggest such protest before Los Angeles, more than 100,000 immigrant workers and their supporters rallied in downtown Chicago on March 11.

According to organizers, the total number participating in the Los Angeles march may have exceeded 1 million. Throughout the day, thousands of new protesters joined the march, causing Spanish-language network UNIVISION to arrive at an estimate of 2 million. The demonstration was sponsored by CARECEN (Central American Resource Center), the Mexican American Political Association, the Catholic Church hierarchy and local groups in the Latin American and Asian-American communities.

So large was the Los Angeles demonstration that it took even the organizers by surprise, and the police, which had originally designated Broadway for the march, had to open adjacent streets to accommodate the endless stream of people, who then flooded adjacent Spring and Main Streets.

The spirited march, comprising in its overwhelming majority Hispanic and Latin American young working men and women—auto mechanics, dry-wall installers, assemblers, construction workers, nurses, garage attendants, street cleaners, waiters, bus boys, parking lot attendants, maids, janitors; in fact representatives of Southern California’s labor force—began at Olympic Boulevard and ended at City Hall 20 blocks away.

Among the signs that were prominently and repeatedly displayed by the marchers were, “Please, Let Us Be Part of Your Dreams,” “We Are the Same, Ordinary People Like You,” “We Are Not Criminals,” “Amnesty and Full Rights For All Immigrants,” “We are Not Criminals; We Are Students, Parents, and Neighbors,” “I’m in My Homeland,” “We Are Not the Enemy; We are Part of the Solution,” “The United States: Land of Liberty, Land of Immigrants,” “We Are All Immigrants in This Country,” “Working Is Not a Crime,” and “No to HR3447.”

Along the march, the WSWS interviewed many workers.

Referring to HR3447, the anti-immigrant law before Congress, R.D., a young drywall finisher from Riverside County, said, “I am an undocumented worker. I came to this country to get a better life for myself and my family. This is supposed to be the land of freedom. I work very hard and I pay my taxes. I help the American economy. Why shouldn’t I work here? I am part of America. Everybody at work lives in fear. Is that the way it’s supposed to be here? And now, with this new law they are proposing it’s going to be worse. That’s why I am here today. I never imagined I’d be marching for freedom in the United States.”

HR3447 was one of the main targets of the protest. It is also known as the Sensenbrenner-King Bill, which the House of Representatives passed last December under the main sponsorship of Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner. Not only would it crack down on employers and businesses that hire undocumented immigrants, but it would also make anyone who assists them, or anyone who enters this country illegally, a felon. It would also expand enforcement of the law all along the border between the United and Mexico, which means erecting a fence 700 miles long.

While the bill had the support of the House Republican leadership, both the Senate Republican leadership and the Bush administration have expressed reservations, based on two concerns: objections from business interests that need immigrant workers to keep operating; and fears of a backlash at the polls from Latino and Asian voters, especially in states like California, Texas and Florida, which have large immigrant populations.

A bipartisan bill sponsored by Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republican John McCain of Arizona has attracted the most Democratic Party support, as well as some Republicans, and it has features favored by the Bush administration, including a temporary guest worker program, which would turn millions of immigrants into a short-term, easily exploited labor force.

No big-business politician in either party supports the democratic right of immigrant workers to live and work in the country of their choice. All of them proclaim the need to “defend our borders,” as though the United States were being invaded by a hostile army, in order to appeal to right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment. At the same time, they seek to reconcile such appeals with the need of big business to maintain access to cheap labor.

The disputes among the Republicans and Democrats, which do not break clearly along party lines, involve different estimates of how far it is practical to go in harassing and deporting undocumented workers. The McCain-Kennedy bill would allow employers to sponsor workers for permanent immigrant status. Those undocumented workers already in the country would be able to become immigrants and citizens after an undetermined number of years, provided they pay a fine, meet certain work requirements and learn to speak English.

Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is crafting a compromise bill that would require participants in a guest worker program to leave the United States after six years. They would have to remain in their country of origin for one year before being allowed back into the United States. This is closer to the position of the White House, but still evokes some opposition from employer groups fearful of the disruptive effect of such a turnover in their labor force.

California’s senior Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has sought to satisfy both the right-wing law-and-order demagogues and the agribusiness interests. She denounced allegedly lax enforcement of immigration laws, saying, “We have tens of thousands of criminal aliens freely walking the streets of our communities because instead of being deported to their communities after serving time, they are simply released back into their communities to commit more crimes.” At the same time she insisted that any new legislation include an exception for farm workers because California’s economy, the world’s sixth largest, “would collapse” without such an exception.

Sections of the Republican right wing see immigrant bashing as the next “wedge issue” to be exploited in the 2006 elections. One Republican congressman, Tom Tancredo of Colorado, is exploring a possible presidential campaign on that basis. State legislatures in several states have introduced bills that would allow immigrants to be arrested for trespassing—making immigration a state rather than a federal matter—or making it illegal for undocumented workers to buy homes, receive health services or send their children to school.

The marchers in Los Angeles who spoke with the WSWS rejected the perspective that immigrants should be treated as criminals. A 28-year-old truck mechanic from San Bernardino said that “the law is racist, especially directed against Mexicans more than anyone else. It will criminalize the people that cross the border into the United States, as well as the people who help them. It will also punish the employers with jail. The law still hasn’t finalized the details, but generally it will punish people who come here illegally.

“Right now at work there is an atmosphere of fear begun to take place because of everything that is happening, because of the anti-immigrant wave that’s happening in the United States.”

One 26-year-old immigrant, from Michoacán, Mexico, has been in this country legally for six years. He told the WSWS, “I work at a chemical plant. I am a machine operator, in charge of the maintenance of the machines. In the summer I work up to 60 hours. I make 15 dollars an hour. After six years, that’s nothing. The atmosphere at work is very good. My boss is a good woman. She really appreciates the Hispanic community.

“We have had no immigration raids. We are fine. But I am here today because I want to show my support to people. Maybe I am a little bit better off, but we are all together in this. If we don’t unite, we are not going to get anything. Some of us may be better off, but if we don’t help the less fortunate, what’s going to happen to them? We have to think about other people besides ourselves. That’s why I am here. I look out for my own welfare, as well as the welfare of those around me.

“It’s difficult to say if the Democratic Party will help us. Like with all politicians, on election eve, they show a different face. They say so many things, that they are going to help you, but when they reach power, they become totally different and they flee.

“I think that my message to the rest of the American workers is: accept us, and to see us their brothers, because we are all workers. We can do everything they can do. In fact, we are not afraid to do the work they refuse to do. I think we are all equal. We have the same aptitudes and abilities. All we need is an opportunity.”

The political perspective revealed by the march organizers is to keep this massive response by immigrant workers to attacks on their civil and political rights within the confines of the Democratic Party and of protest politics. The list of speakers at City Hall included LA Mayor Antonio Villarraigosa and other Latino Democrats.

Only the Socialist Equality Party, however, unconditionally defends the rights of immigrant workers, regardless of their legal status, and fights to unite American workers with their class brothers and sisters in Latin America, Asia and throughout the world in a common struggle against the profit system.