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Article Launched: 3/25/2006 01:38 PM


Thousands rally downtown

By Rachel Uranga
LA Daily News

In Los Angeles' largest ever pro-immigrant rally, tens of thousands of protesters marched through downtown streets today to protest a federal bill calling for a 700-mile U.S.-Mexican border wall and the criminalization of illegal immigrants.
By noon, organizers estimated more than 500,000 demonstrators were swarming closed streets around City Hall as a series of speakers rallied the crowd, urging unity and denouncing the bill.

Among the speakers was Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who spoke to the cheering crowd for about two minutes this morning.

"I am the mayor, but I am also the child of immigrants,'' Villaraigosa said. "We are workers, not criminals, and we are here, with the Catholic Church, the unions, with all those people. We are together. We are here today to say to this great country, this great America was built on the back of immigrants.''

Protestors focused on the federal proposal introduced by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., one of a raft of measures that will be considered by Congress in the coming weeks.

The House has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Senate is to begin debating immigration proposals on Tuesday.

While the bills have been cheered by some Americans, they have split the Republican Party on the thorny issue of immigration and stirred anger in immigrant communities.

By 9 a.m., today's Los Angeles demonstration -- organized by the March 25th Coalition, a group of clergy and activists -- had already drawn thousands of people who clogged the streets and jammed traffic.

Several Los Angeles Police Department divisions were put on a modified tactical alert as the protestors -- many wearing white shirts and carrying U.S. and Mexican flags -- streamed toward City Hall where speakers addressed the crowd from the south balcony.

About 12 million illegal immigrants -- or 5 percent of the country's work force -- live in the United States, with California home to an estimated 2.5 million, more than any other state.

And as Congress prepares for a heated battle on immigration and President George W. Bush calls for a "civil'' debate, pro-immigrant activists are turning up the decibel level.

For weeks, activists had used Spanish-language radio, television and word of mouth to draw protesters to the rally.

But those pushing for tougher immigration laws say protesters who oppose a law making illegal immigrants felons are missing the point, which is that strictly enforced rules will fix the nation's broken immigration system.

"People are demanding to be rewarded for breaking the law,'' Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports the criminalizing of illegal immigrants, said last week. "We are not going to get a handle on this problem if we reward people who break the law.''

In his weekly radio address today, President Bush underscored America's immigrant history and called for secure borders and strict immigration enforcement.

Bush also urged Congress to write new immigration law with a guest worker program that could provide legal status _ short of citizenship _ for some of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

"As we debate the immigration issue, we must remember there are hardworking individuals, doing jobs that Americans will not do, who are contributing to the economic vitality of our country,'' Bush said.