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Claudia Ruiz was born in the United States, but the 16-year-old high school student is terrified that if legislation to make illegal immigration a felony becomes law, it could rip her family apart.

Ruiz and her four siblings were born in this country, but her parents were born in Mexico and illegally came across the border 17 years ago.

"It's not only my parents but many other parents as well," Ruiz said.

On Monday she was among the 10,000 people who marched through San Jose as part of a nationwide effort to demand equal rights for immigrants. Several thousand people walked seven miles across Oakland, 5,000 marched through San Francisco's Mission District, and hundreds more attended rallies across the Bay Area.

Ice cream and churro vendors joined the San Jose marchers, who like those in other cities wore white T-shirts, waved flags and chanted, "Sí, se puede" ("Yes, we can"), as they walked four miles west to City Hall in San Jose.

Demonstrators appeared to come from a variety of backgrounds. Toward the front of the San Jose march, a yellow flatbed truck carried about 40 people down Story Road, among them three Buddhist monks in saffron robes, a Roman Catholic priest holding a cross and a South Asian woman in a white head scarf.

Veronica Hernandez, 25, of San Jose, who gained legal status after her father became a citizen, marched with Unite Here, a hotel workers union.

"We're just here to work," said Hernandez, who emigrated from Mexico a decade ago. "We're not asking for more money or a better position, and it's not just Latinos or Mexican people. The whole world comes to the United States."

Four trucks from Spanish-language radio stations picked up the rear of the San Jose march, which a police officer estimated at 10,000 people.

"Every footstep, every chant, every flag, they can see and hear us," said Sanjeev Bery of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The entire debate in D.C. is changing because of us."

The demonstrations follow the Senate's failure Friday to reach a compromise on an immigration bill that would have offered temporary work permits to most of the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and would have allowed many to apply for legal residence and, eventually, citizenship. A bill passed by the House would make it an aggravated felony to be in the United States illegally and to help someone who is. It also would authorize 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In San Francisco's predominantly Latino Mission District, hundreds of protesters gathered in an intermittent drizzle Monday morning, and organizers estimated that 5,000 more rallied again in the evening under clear skies.

Evening marchers, including mothers who pushed strollers and couples who held hands, also chanted "Sí, se puede" as they walked from the 16th Street BART station down Mission Street, snarling evening commute traffic. Residents hung out of apartment windows, and shopkeepers poured into the streets to show sympathy with the marchers.

Honduras native Anna Sura, who moved to the United States 25 years ago, was among the many marchers who carried American flags. Written in black ink on her flag's white stripes was the message, "We love this country. We want to stay legally."

"I'm here for the other people who don't have papers," said Sura, who is a U.S. citizen. "Everybody should have the same rights."

Two hundred fifty to 300 people also marched through Richmond, 200 attended a rally in Berkeley and 400 rallied in Concord, police and organizers said. Marches that had been planned in Redwood City and Hayward fizzled.

In Oakland, passing cars honked in support as the parade that had begun at 100th Avenue in East Oakland at 9 a.m. made its way along International Boulevard to the federal buildings downtown, arriving about 12:30 p.m.

About 1,000-strong at the outset, the march gathered participants with every block, and police estimated the crowd at several thousand by the time the march ended.

As the parade passed, Araceli Peres, 52, and her 4-year-old niece, Ruby, held hands and waved American flags.

"I came here legally, I went to school, I'm a registered nurse,'' Peres said, adding that she believes Congress should assist others who cross the border to live legally in the United States.

Yolanda Mendoza, an organizer of the Oakland event, noted that the nation was built by immigrants and said many marchers simply want to be heard.

"They want to divide us, classify us as criminals and, above all, kick us out of this country,'' said organizer Luis Herrera at the San Francisco rally.

Juan Valdivia, an immigrant from Nicaragua and a coordinator for San Francisco's day laborer program, added to the chorus touting the clout of immigrants.

"There are millions of us,'' Valdivia said. "We're going to have our kids in the street, our families in the street, until we get the respect we deserve.''

The rally was deeply personal for Guillermina Castellanos, 49, a mother of eight who lives in the Mission District and volunteers as a janitor at the Women's Collective of La Raza Centro Legal.

Castellanos, who now has legal status, said through a translator that being undocumented made her reluctant to contact law enforcement when she was a victim of domestic violence and made it hard to get work or an education or even medical care for her children.