Thread: WA:Protesters unite in peace on May Day

Last updated May 1, 2008 10:14 p.m. PT

Gilbert W. Arias / P-IDemonstrators participating in the annual May Day March carry a giant globe up 4th Ave in downtown Seattle.
Protesters unite in peace on May Day
By JOHN IWASAKI
P-I REPORTER

The red, white and blue merged with the red, white and green Thursday as several thousand demonstrators, mostly Latino and many bearing U.S. or Mexican flags, marched through downtown Seattle to advocate for immigration reform and to protest deportations.



· Photos of Thursday's marches through Seattle and other major cities around the world
Activists in cities across the U.S. held demonstrations to keep the issue of immigrants -- legal or not -- in the spotlight during a presidential election year.

The downtown march and rally was one of several protests in Seattle on May Day, with anti-war stevedores taking the day off at the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, college students rallying on two campuses, and the ninth annual immigration march stopping rush-hour traffic.

Chanting "SÃ*, se puede!" ("Yes, we can!"), marchers carried bilingual signs that called for promoting justice and protecting workers -- everything from "You are disrupting a social class" to "Bring my dad back."

"Basic human rights should be expected -- the right of people to cross borders," said Mexican native Andrea Carcamo, a French major at the University of Washington, whose sign said, "Stop terrorizing our community."

The demonstration was organized by El Comite Pro-Amnistia General y Justicia Social (The Committee for General Amnesty and Social Justice), a nonprofit Latino organization made up mostly of local social-justice, labor and religious groups.

Demonstrations took place from Washington, D.C., to Miami to Los Angeles. About 15,000 people rallied in Chicago in one of the largest rallies of the day, with demonstrators calling for citizenship opportunities for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. About 250,000 are estimated to be in Washington.

In Olympia, anti-war and immigration rights demonstrators broke windows in a pair of downtown banks and left graffiti in some of the marble halls at the domed Legislative Building, the state Capitol. Six people were arrested, and more than two dozen gathered outside City Hall.

But Seattle's march was peaceful, and police made no arrests.

Lynnwood resident Marina Nerio, who works in billing for a home health service, said some undocumented individuals may have been afraid to show up for the Seattle rally.

"We're all humans. We all have rights like everyone else," said Nerio, who immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador 31 years ago.

Seattle Catholic Archbishop Alex Brunett, addressing demonstrators before the march at Judkins Park, said his church "respects the law" but "cannot ignore the human needs of immigrant workers and their families when the law fails to protect their basic human rights."

In the crowd, Renton resident Maria Romero, a Mexican native and American citizen, said her husband is in the U.S. illegally. After working for more than a year to get him legal status, Romero said she doubts their situation will improve without changes in the law.

"All he wants to do is work," Romero said. "He's a good worker. But now they want that good Social Security card."

Luis Navarro, president of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, cited a recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center that said documented immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries add about $14 billion to Washington's economy. Undocumented immigrants add another $3 billion, according to the study.

In the face of what he called "massive deportations," the state's Latino community continues to grow larger and more politically active, Navarro said as he attended the rally.

"Those who don't have papers continue to live in hiding," he said. "That gives us the responsibility to speak for them."

Along the march route, Jami Brock was among the people stepping out of shops and apartments to watch.

"I believe ... immigrants should have equal rights, the same rights the rest of us in Seattle have," she said.

Leaders of some Washington groups that oppose illegal immigration were in Yakima on Thursday to protest a pro-immigration rally.

Bob Baker, state director of Washingtonians for Immigration Reform, said the state government is paying millions of dollars a year to provide health, educational and other services to illegal immigrants.

"This is really about the rule of law," he said after the Yakima rally. "These people are breaking our immigration laws by coming here. They don't respect these laws, and in these rallies, they're showing that."

Baker, a Mercer Island resident and airline pilot, is pursuing an initiative to the Legislature that attempts to ensure that applicants for driver's licenses are legal residents. Two bills with similar aims died in legislative transportation committees in the 2008 session.

Tacoma resident Leon Donahue, secretary of Baker's organization and a retired property manager, said he is "not anti-immigrant but anti-illegal alien. There's a distinct difference. We get tired of hearing that we're playing the race card."

Donahue said it was essential for opponents of illegal immigration to act because help won't come from the next U.S. president. Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supported Republican Sen. John McCain's 2006 bill that offered illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status. All three candidates also favor building a fence across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Over nearly the past six months, 3,314 illegal aliens from Washington, Oregon and Alaska have been deported or returned voluntarily to their native country, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Nationally, nearly 120,000 individuals during that period have been removed from the U.S.

Although some opponents of illegal immigration wanted federal agents to scoop up participants in Thursday's demonstration in Seattle, Immigration and Customs Enforcement bases its activities on investigative leads, spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said.

Those in the country illegally "should not be surprised if they are arrested," she said, "but we don't randomly pick people up and load them in the back of a truck."

Hundreds of Washington stevedores at the ports of Seattle and Tacoma did not report to their day shifts Thursday, joining a West Coast union protest of the war in Iraq.

Members and supporters of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 19, including peace activists and socialist groups, marched along Alaskan Way South to Pier 66.

Herald Ugles, president of ILWU Local 19, said 400 to 500 local longshore workers did not arrive for their day shifts but will work Thursday night. Along the West Coast, more than 25,000 stevedores took the day off, according to the union.

A Port of Tacoma spokeswoman said the shutdown was not unexpected because many workers celebrate International Workers' Day on May 1.

Officials of the Pacific Maritime Association, which employs longshore workers, called the work stoppage an illegal strike.

P-I reporters Levi Pulkkinen, Brad Wong and Kathy Mulady and The Associated Press contributed to this story. P-I reporter John Iwasaki can be reached at 206-448-8096 or johniwasaki@seattlepi.com.
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/361433_march02.html

I'm noticing that more articles are now including statements from the anti-illegal alien side, it's about time!