Thread: Immigration activists plan May Day rallies

mmigration activists plan May Day rallies
Tens of thousands are expected to protest for reform, such as legalization, though policy differences push groups to separate their events into seven marches. Four will be held in downtown L.A.
By Teresa Watanabe
May 1, 2009
Buoyed by perceptions of a bright political climate for immigration reform, thousands of activists plan to rally today in Los Angeles and nationally for migrant and labor rights.

But even as President Obama, a Democratic Congress and many immigrant activists agree on the major outlines of a reform package, some Southern California activists say differences among them have shattered previous unity and resulted in plans to field separate marches.

At least seven marches are scheduled, including four in downtown Los Angeles, as traditional May Day celebrations of workers' rights have expanded to include immigration reform. Downtown march organizers are projecting between 20,000 and 60,000 participants, far fewer than the hundreds of thousands who turned out in 2006 to protest House passage of legislation that would have criminalized actions by illegal immigrants and their supporters.

The marches are still expected to snarl downtown traffic for hours, particularly when they converge near City Hall in the late afternoon. Several streets including 11th, Ord, Grand and Alameda will be closed. City officials are recommending that commuters take public transportation. For more street closure information, go to http://trafficinfo.lacity.org/html/2009MayDay.html.

Most of the groups agree on the same policy measures -- legalize illegal immigrants, stop work-site and residential raids, and end the separation of families through deportations. Sharp disputes over the use of guest worker permits, meanwhile, were recently settled by two leading labor unions.

But Jorge Rodriguez of the March 25 Coalition, which organized the massive marches three years ago, said he failed in repeated attempts to persuade other coalitions to unify into one march. He blamed the failure on the "egos" of others.

"People weren't willing to look at the bigger impact we could have if we all came together," Rodriguez said. "They couldn't get beyond their own egos."

Hamid Khan of the South Asian Network said real policy differences divided the groups, one reason his organization planned to rally in Artesia this year rather than join the Los Angeles marches. He said he has not garnered much support from other coalitions for his group's concerns, such as how national security and immigration laws have been jointly used to detain and deport immigrants from Pakistan and other South Asian nations.

Nativo Lopez, whose Mexican American Political Assn. is now part of the Southern California Immigration Coalition, said he was unwilling to support measures that other advocates accepted, such as e-verify, an electronic method to confirm employees' work status.

"Why would anyone expect everyone to put our differences aside to artificially demonstrate people are unified when they're not?" he asked.

His coalition is supporting full legalization of all illegal immigrants and urging Obama to use administrative authority to stop the raids, stay deportation orders and end the incarceration of undocumented children, among other things.

In the past, coalitions were also split over whether to call on students to ditch school and employees to boycott work in support of immigrant rights. This year, however, no one is calling for boycotts amid widespread economic hardship.

Despite the differences, immigrant activists expressed optimism that Obama would make good on promises for reform. Members of the Multi-ethnic Immigrant Worker Organizing Network, who will march from Echo Park to Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, plan to form a 2,000-person human billboard with an appeal to the president.

"We have definitely raised our hopes this year, knowing President Obama and Congress will do the right thing in passing humane legislation," Rodriguez said.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 9575.story

Immigrants, allies to march today
Obama's election gives some immigrants new hope for path to citizenship.

By Juan Castillo
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, May 01, 2009

On the streets of downtown Austin tonight, immigrants and their allies will press their demands for new laws that will potentially give millions of illegal immigrants a chance to become legal U.S. residents.

The March for Just and Humane Immigration Reform coincides with coordinated May Day protests across the country, the fourth consecutive year for nationwide demonstrations and the third since the historic 2006 marches that drew millions of supporters.

But with President Barack Obama already signaling his intent to make comprehensive immigration reform a priority, some advocates question whether another public demonstration might erode political support for immigration reform, produce protest fatigue or lead to more stepped-up enforcement of current immigration laws.

In Austin, however, organizers say support among immigrants and community leaders is strong and that now is the time to hold the president to his pledge and to build momentum for immigration reform.

"We want to show President Obama he will have a lot of support, and we hope to be part of that (immigration reform) proposal," said Caroline Keating-Guerra with the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, a sponsor of the march.

She said the coalition supports reforms that include a pathway to legalization for an estimated 12 million immigrants already in the country; access to education, housing and health care; workers' rights; and an end to immigration raids.

Immigrants set the agenda for today's protests, Keating-Guerra said. But she said the coalition put the march proposal up for a vote because some immigrants feared participating in a demonstration and others didn't see it as the most effective means to achieve change. The vote resulted in unanimous support.

Rocio Labra, a Mexican immigrant who planned to join today's march, said her peers are more hopeful than in recent years.

"We have a new president," she said. "There's a small light of hope that there will be change this year."

The march takes place as fears of the swine flu, which has hit particularly hard in Mexico, have given fuel to anti-immigrant sentiments among many opponents of immigration reform.

In April 2006, legal and illegal immigrants and their supporters marched down Congress Avenue in one of the largest civil protests in city history — crowd estimates ranged from 12,000 to 30,000. But marches here and across the country shrank considerably in 2007 and 2008. Austin organizers said they don't expect this evening's turnout to rival 2006 numbers.

"Some immigrants fear that if they march, they'll lose their jobs. And then there's rumors of immigration raids," Labra said.

In a statement Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it welcomes comprehensive immigration reform but has "an obligation to enforce the laws of our country as they are currently written."

AlsoThursday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that immigration agents will continue making arrests in raids on workplaces but that the department's new focus is on employers who knowingly hire illegal laborers. Immigrant advocacy groups quickly reacted, calling the new enforcement strategy a better approach but no substitute for reform.

Nestor Rodriguez, an expert in immigration studies and a sociology professor at the University of Texas, said the immigration marches keep the issue of reform in the minds of policymakers.

From reform advocates' standpoint, Rodriguez said, "The worst thing they could do is do nothing. Doing nothing could be interpreted as apathy or as a sign the issue is no longer relevant."

jcastillo@statesman.com; 445-3635
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... march.html

woohoo LESS TRAFFIC ON THE ROADS

Yeah, but more flu closure kids out of school swarming all over the place. This ought to be fun to watch. Could be a real animal farm of entertainment.