Immigration groups clash in L.A.
Rallies marking a year since 500,000 filled downtown streets draw smaller crowds on both sides of the issue. Mayor is among speakers.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/6701612.html

By Ana Beatriz Cholo
The Associated Press

Dueling immigration rallies Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of a massive pro-immigrant demonstration that jammed downtown Los Angeles streets with a half-million protesters and framed new debate in Washington.

Sunday's rallies didn't come close to bringing the crowds of last year's event.

Several hundred immigrant rights activists marched to downtown's Federal Building from the city's historical center to protest immigration raids and demand reform. The pro-immigrant crowd was too thin to encircle the Federal Building as planned, police said.

Blocks away, anti-illegal immigration demonstrators demanded stiffer enforcement of U.S. borders and verbally clashed with pro-immigration forces.

Hundreds attended an earlier pro-immigrant rally at the Los Angeles Sports Arena that featured speeches from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles.

Despite the lower than anticipated turnout, rally organizer Marta Rojas, an emigrant from Colombia, said last year's event launched an important movement.

"The government is starting to listen," she said as she prepared signs for the march. "They are starting to see the strength of the immigrants. Legal and not-legal people are coming out."

The 2006 march followed legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that would make it a felony to enter the U.S. illegally.

This year's demonstrations came amid softer new proposals for immigration reform in Congress, including a bill introduced last week by Reps. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona and Luis V. Gutierrez, D-Illinois. The bill calls for border and workplace immigration enforcement, a guest worker program and a streamlined means of achieving legal immigration.

On Sunday, demonstrators carried signs reading "Legalization now" and "We are workers, not terrorists."

Jefferson Azevedo, a Brazilian immigrant, said he didn't consider any immigrant illegal.

"We all know this is Mexican land," he said. "They didn't cross the border. The border crossed them."



The counter demonstration was held by members of Save Our State and the Minuteman Project in an area with many Latino-run businesses.

The group of about 150 held signs reading "Good fences make good neighbors" and "No amnesty for illegals" as it was taunted by pro-immigration demonstrators.

One pro-immigration activist provoked jeers and threats from the group when he wiped the sidewalk with an American flag. A cordon of police kept the two groups apart.

Standing among the anti-illegal immigration protesters was 76-year-old Esther Lofton. Loften said she was representing "my community, the black community" of Watts -- an area that has seen a surge of Latino immigrants in the past decade.

"I'm not out here just fighting Hispanics," she said. "I'm out here fighting illegal immigration. This is my first march, but I hope to get something started."