Big S.F. protest of Arizona immigration law
Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, May 2, 2010

COMMENTS: 1398


(05-01) 16:05 PDT -- Thousands marched through San Francisco's Mission District Saturday to denounce a new Arizona state law as racist and to call for immigration reform.

The march, part of the annual worldwide May Day workers' rights demonstrations, stretched four to five blocks and ended at City Hall, where members of the conservative Tea Party and local Golden Gate Minutemen held a counter-protest.

Jim Homer, a business manager for Local 216 of the Laborers International Union of North America, whose 100-member group led the march, said many fellow construction laborers fear Arizona's SB1070 will spread to California and create cultural hostility toward foreign-born workers.

"The immigration system is set up to blame the workers who come here," Homer said. "There needs to be reform of the immigration laws that put more focus on the employers and their responsibilities, not just on the people who come to this country to make a living."

SB1070, signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer last week, makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally. Constitutional lawyers have debated whether Arizona has the right to make laws on federal issues such as immigration. And though the law was amended Thursday night to bar police from using race as grounds for questioning anyone, the nationwide furor from immigration rights groups has not died down.

That was in sharp evidence Saturday, as workers and immigrants at the San Francisco march - and others like it in Oakland and San Jose - said the law will give police the right to check for immigration papers of any brown-skinned citizens.

Ruben Esqueda, a gardener from Pittsburg, said he immigrated to the United States in 1972, and felt moved to participate in the day's march.

"I should be working today," Esqueda said. "But this is more important for the long run. ... We're all Americans, from Alaska to Argentina."

Tony Perez, 21, of Redwood City, banged a wooden spoon against an empty Folger's coffee can as he walked.

Perez said he worries for friends who served in the military. "Would they go from serving their country to being harassed in Arizona?" he asked.

At the Civic Center counter-protest, Elizabeth Kelly, an Alameda resident who supports the Golden Gate Minutemen, said she also wants immigration reform. The Minutemen are a local branch of the controversial national group that voluntarily patrols the border, trying to stop undocumented immigrants from entering the country.

"Close the border," she said. "I want to see them go back. That'd be my immigration reform."

Fred Alvarez, a Bayview resident, said he also supports the Arizona law and wishes California would adopt similar legislation.

Alvarez said his parents were born in Mexico, but today's immigrants "want things for free. It used to be 'I'd give you the shirt off my back.' Now they're demanding, 'Give me the shirt off your back.' "

Vanessa Garcia, 28, from San Rafael, said she traveled into the city to express her frustration with the Arizona law.
"I can't believe in 2010 this kind of racist law exists," she said. "It needs to be stopped."

E-mail Justin Berton at jberton@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle


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