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March 16, 2006

Activists to march for immigrant rights
By Donna Jones
Sentinel Staff Writer
WATSONVILLE — Immigrant rights activists will join forces with anti-war protesters in a march from Watsonville to Salinas on March 25 to raise awareness about an immigration reform bill being considered by Congress.

The protest will coincide with a local leg of a 241-mile peace march that started in Tijuana, Mexico, on Sunday and will conclude in San Francisco on March 27. The California March for Peace is being led by Fernando Suarez del Solar, the Escondido father of a Marine killed in Iraq just days after the invasion in March 2003.

The immigration bill also will be protested at a rally and march in Santa Cruz on Friday.

"This bill would make a major impact on the Central Coast, just from the number of people who work really hard in the agriculture industry and the hospitality industry," said Cesar Lara, executive director of the Citizenship Project in Salinas. "It will make a difficult situation even more difficult for that population."

The bill, HR 4437, or the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, makes entering the United States illegally a crime, tightens borders security, toughens penalties for smuggling aliens into the country and forbids U.S. citizens from helping illegal immigrants.

The two issues, immigration and war, are intertwined, said Bob Fitch, a staffer with the Santa Cruz-based Resource Center for Nonviolence, who is participating in the statewide march.

One reason the march started in Tijuana is because recruiters visit the city across the border from San Diego, offering citizenship in return for military service, Fitch said.

"The military is asking noncitizens to come and fight and die for a country that doesn't really honor the relationship between Mexico and the United States as open and just and free," he said by cell phone from Orange County, where marchers hoped to attract hundreds of supporters to a rally Wednesday night.

Jennifer Laskin, a member of the Watsonville Brown Berets, is looking for a similar crowd of Santa Cruz County residents at the March 25 protest.

Organizers still are working on the logistics, but plan to start in downtown Watsonville and then after a rally and march here, travel to Salinas by car and bus to continue the march, she said.

"This is a great opportunity for North County and South County to work together on a common issue," Laskin said. "Immigrants need that white progressive liberal community to support them."

Contact Donna Jones at djones@santacruzsentinel.com.

If You Go

Protests against immigration bill

WHAT: March and candlelight vigil.

WHo: Sponsored by UC Santa Cruz SIN Coalition and the Watsonville Brown Berets.

WHEN: 5 p.m. Friday.

WHERE: Rally at County Government Center, 701 Ocean St., Santa Cruz, Water Street entrance; march to Beach Flats at 6 p.m.


If you go

WHAT: Rally and march/caravan.

WHo: Sponsored by Central Coast Citizenship Project and Watsonville Brown Berets.

WHEN: 10 a.m. March 25.

WHERE: Rally location in downtown Watsonville to be announced. March/caravan to Salinas.