Thread: L.A. Authorities Brace for Huge Immigration Marches

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L.A. Authorities Brace for Huge Immigration Marches
By Hector Becerra and Andrew Blankstein
Times Staff Writers

April 28, 2006

Two immigrant rights demonstrations Monday in Los Angeles could each draw a half-million marchers or more, police said Thursday, as officials expressed concern about a major disruption of traffic, commerce and school.

LAPD Assistant Chief George Gascon said the estimates are based on street intelligence and what he described as a well-organized campaign involving radio stations, churches and community groups. Police do not expect trouble, he added.

Demonstrations are planned for downtown at noon and Mid-Wilshire at 4 p.m. Gascon said the LAPD is gearing up to deal with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators at each.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Cardinal Roger Mahony and others have encouraged protesters to attend the late-afternoon march from MacArthur Park down Wilshire Boulevard to La Brea Avenue, prompting authorities to say that crowd might be the larger of the two.

Officials in Santa Ana, Huntington Park, Oxnard, Riverside, Pomona and San Diego said they expect smaller but boisterous protests.

Police in Chicago, meanwhile, estimated that as many as 500,000 could take to the streets in that city, while Seattle officials and protest organizers said they expect anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 marchers.

Officials acknowledged that it is difficult to predict the size of any protest crowd, noting that at a march last month, the LAPD had expected far fewer protesters than the estimated 500,000 people who showed up outside Los Angeles City Hall.

But if the LAPD's estimates prove correct, Monday's marches would approach the scope of that event — one of the largest protests in Los Angeles' history. Officials said Monday's demonstrations could prove more disruptive, however, because they will occur on a weekday and they include a call for people to boycott school and work and refrain from shopping.

Some small-business owners say they plan to close down Monday, either to support the marchers or because they think it would be difficult to do business.

State and local school officials urged students to stay in classes, and transportation officials planned street closures and bus route detours.

"We want students to exercise free speech, but not at the expense of their education," said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. "If students need to protest, they should feel free to do so after school."

The LAPD is coordinating an action plan with the Sheriff's Department, transportation agencies, the school district and other law enforcement. Officials said they also have been in contact with organizers in hopes of minimizing any conflicts and making sure the demonstrations run smoothly.

"We feel very confident at this point about the way the demonstrators have been conducting themselves, and we don't anticipate any problems," Gascon said. "We want to protect the demonstrators' 1st Amendment rights as well as the property rights and the rights of everyone else in the community."

Authorities voiced concern that because the protest falls on May Day, revolutionary groups and anarchists who have given police trouble in the past might join the marchers.

"We are not sure what they will add to the mix," said LAPD Capt. Andy Smith of the Central Division.

The noon march in Los Angeles is scheduled to begin at Olympic Boulevard and Broadway and proceed north toward City Hall. It is organized by the March 25 Coalition, which has called for a boycott of work, school and consumer activity. Leaders say the goal is to demonstrate the vital role of immigrants in the economy.

The second march is scheduled to begin at MacArthur Park and head west on Wilshire Boulevard toward La Brea. Organizers include the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and labor and civic groups. They say they want to give people who cannot take the day off work a way to participate in the fight for immigrant rights, and have urged students not to miss school.

LAPD officials said they have heard about a possible third demonstration being organized for Monday night in downtown, but did not know how big it might be.

It is unclear how businesses will be affected by the protests. Most larger shops and companies appear to be planning regular operations Monday. But local businesses with large numbers of immigrant workers, as well as those owned by immigrants and establishments along protest routes, could face substantial disruptions.

Some restaurants, grocery stores, garment factories, farmers, meat packers, gardeners and truckers say they plan to suspend some or all operations. Households may not get their usual gardening or housecleaning services, while some commercial establishments may not receive expected deliveries. Some workers who plan to demonstrate have already cleared their absences with their employers, while others plan to work from home to avoid traffic problems.

Additionally, some activists have vowed to disrupt work at the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles International Airport and elsewhere, though it is unclear uncertain how much support they have.

With the demonstration approaching, Villaraigosa and other officials appealed Thursday for students to stay in school Monday.

"It's very important to keep our kids in school and to make sure they get a good education, including on May 1st," he said, speaking first in English, then Spanish. "After school, they can join in the marches as is their 1st Amendment right."

But some groups rejected such pleas, saying students have a moral duty to protest immigration legislation they feel is wrong.

"I believe children have more to learn protesting on the streets with their parents, expressing their rights, than in the classrooms," said Nativo Lopez, president of Hermandad Mexicana, which was organizing a demonstration in Santa Ana.

Los Angeles Unified Supt. Roy Romer said there would be no districtwide order to place schools on lockdown, during which students are not allowed to leave classrooms. Instead, principals on each campus will decide how to react if students try to leave campus during the school day.

"Monday, we need to be in school," Romer said at a news conference with O'Connell at Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights. "We will be able to keep children safer at school, we will be able to continue their education, and after school hours there will be appropriate occasion to express themselves."

In Huntington Park, the scheduled ending point for a smaller demonstration, police said they were expecting many students to miss class. But stopping them would not be a priority, said Assistant Police Chief Cosme Lozano.

"We will have plenty of other things to worry about," he said. "We're not going to make mass truancy detentions a priority, but it will be a tool for us to use if we have to."

In Sacramento, the California Senate in a party-line vote approved a resolution designating Monday as the "Great American Boycott 2006." Democrats argued that protests are a venerable tradition going back to the Boston Tea Party. But Republicans criticized the measure as condoning illegality and encouraging student truancy.

Several Democratic lawmakers said they would be participating in the demonstrations Monday, and leaders decided that neither the Senate or Assembly would conduct business that day.

However, lawmakers can still receive their $138 per diem, a move Republicans called hypocritical, since most immigrants skipping work for protests are not paid.


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Times staff writers Hemmy So, Seema Mehta, Teresa Watanabe, Jordan Rau, Jennifer Delson, Anna Gorman and Joel Rubin, and researchers John Beckham and Lynn Marshall, contributed to this report.

Monday's protests will seal their fate -- they ARE terrorists and a liability to this country and the President FOR THE United States should talk with his bestest friend across the border about containing an out of control constituency

I heard that ICE may be mobilizing for the day of the march as well. Has anyone else heard that?

To be quite honest, yes, today, I heard that to be the case in Florida as well. Where and what is making people say this ?

The beautiful thing about DHS and ICE is that it is not predictable----the majority of illegals KNOW that they are in trouble. They believe that the hammer will come down, AND IT WILL---MARK MY WORDS!

ICE has a mandate to enforce the laws on the books, regardless of political wrangling and posturing. Although the majority of you seem to think a bit cynically of the efforts (ie politically motivated) be aware that the arrests of operation Phoenix are having an effect!

Remember that the Phoenix is a bird that rose from the ashes---so it is here also. I think that the majority of ICE employees see that public support is on their side, and , like us, their hard earned work and tax dollars are at stake too. Give the enforcement side a chance to have it's chilling effect---it's starting to work.

As Mamie said, this May 1st will be the nail in the coffin of Illegal Immigration! The lawbreakers have pushed the general population over the edge, and will now justly receive what they have sown! Just the request for ICE NOT TO ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS on May 1st is enough to send the rank and file ICE employee into a tizzy!

Imagine your career hinged on law enforcement, and a bunch of criminals prescribing your course of action. From here on in it will just get uglier---but that's ok---We did not draw first blood!

ThomasMoore

I agree, I think ICE is glad to know that they have so much support. I think every governor of every state should call forth the national guard to assist ICE

I hope ICE will be around, it would give me a little more confidence in Homeland Security's word claiming there would be more raids,and arrests to come.

So, the ILLEGAL ALIENS who entered AMERICA ILLEGALLY want to have a "NOTHING GRINGO DAY"? Even though they are here ILLEGALLY, they apparently have decided to celebrate breaking the law. That is very much like a gang of bank robbers going to a police station so they can celebrate robbing a bank! (No one has yet convinced me that these ILLEGAL ALIENS are intelligent people).

If it weren't such a serious threat to the structure and order of AMERICAN society, the demonstrations would be pathetically humorous. They are not humorous though, because they show how easily these ILLEGAL ALIENS can create social disturbance, or even civil war. This proposed silly demonstration has nothing to do with civil rights, and everything to do with criminal rights. A society which tolerates and recognizes the demands of criminals over the rights of tax-paying, law-abiding citizens cannot sustain itself, and will be unable to resist collapsing on itself.

The demonstrations of ILLEGAL ALIENS show how clearly and aggresively the Mexican and other central and south American governments are trying to stack the votes to sway American foreign policies and alter America's domestic culture and heritage by flooding America with people desperate to escape from their home countries.

The flood of mostly ILLEGAL MEXICAN ALIENS is being supported by Mexican government leaders, eager to use ILLEGAL ALIENS as "exports -underpaid, and almost slave laborers" who will send American dollars back to Mexico. ILLEGAL ALIENS may be the primary product of Mexico, and procreation seems to be a national sport and religious obligation.

AMERICA doesn't need Mexico or ILLEGAL MEXICAN ALIENS, it's exactly the other way around. If American tourists stayed away from Mexico, and ILLEGAL ALIENS were deported, Mexico would choke in its own toilet and only the wealthy corrupt few at the top would be able to survive, assuming that they were dumb enoug to remanin.

It is unclear if The ILLEGAL ALIENS who will demonstrate in AMERICAN streets want to do something to improve their own backward, poverty-stricken, corrupt homelands, or if they simply want to drag AMERICA down to the level of the countries they fled.

"Are they really ignorant enough to believe that they can drop out of school, clean toilets and mow lawns for a living, while continuing to breed and place impossible demands on the school, health and legal sytems?"

"Yes, It seems that they really are that unimaginably ignorant!"

AMERICA used to be a nation of immigrants who came here to be AMERICANS, and came here LEGALLY. Unless the flood of mostly Mexican ILLEGAL ALIENS is stopped, AMERICAN will begin to be more a country of CRIMINALS. I am the grandson of LEGAL IMMIGRANTS who never spoke a word of Spanish once they gained legal access to AMERICA. They filed the required papers and waited until they were asked to enter. They came here to contribute to AMERICA, and to participate in it, not to take from it.

That's the differnce between the mobs millions of ILLEGAL ALIENS who are MOSTLY from Mexico, and the millions of English, Chinese, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Thai, Argentinian, Dutch, Pakistani, Polish, Potugeuse, Italian, Russian, Peruvian, Indian, and other immigrants

The ILLEGAL ALIENS and their ILLEGAL ALIEN CHILDREN may demonstrate in the streets of AMERICA, but years from now when we look at them, we will still see ILLEGAL ALIENS........not AMERICANS.

They will be forever stained by their own crime pf ILLEGAL ENTRY and their own greed, thier own ignorance, and the SHEER ILLEGALITY OF THEIR PRESENCE IN AMERICA.

To avoid this stain, I've begun the process of legally changing my last name so that it will no longer be of Spanish origin. I know my ancestors would be proud of me for making that difficult and painful decision. They would understand that I am AMERICAN........NOT A HISPANIC.

They would understand that among all nations, there is not one nation called Hispanica, and they would understand that "Hispanic" is an imaginary place to hide - not an identity or something to be proud of! "Hispanic is what cast off souls and desperate people call themselves in an effort to understand who or what they are."

I am a "GRINGO" with more fire than the aimless, unguided ILLEGAL ALIENS in the streets are "Hispanic".

I am resolutely OPPOSED to ANY AMNESTY for ILLEGAL ALIENS. I am in support of a 40% TAX ON ALL MONEY sent out of the UNITED STATES, and I support MANDATORY JAIL sentences of 12 months for ALL EMPLOYERS WHO HIRE ILLEGAL ALIENS, and THE FORFEITURE OF HALF OF THEIR PERSONAL AND COMMERCIAL ASSETS.

NOW, I NEED TO FIND A FEW POLITICIANS WITH SOME COURAGE, AND I NEED TO FIND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF "PISSED OFF", "FED-UP" AMERICANS WHO WILL EMAIL AND WRITE TO THEIR POLITICIANS EVERY DAY UNTIL THE ILLEGAL PROBLEM IS SOLVED BY DEPORTING THE ILLEGAL ALIENS AND SEALING THE BORDER WITH MEXICO BY STATIONING THE U.S. ARMY ALONG THE LENGTH OF THAT BORDER.


Until then, we AMERICANS can let the ILLEGAL ALIENS have their "Nothing Gringo Day", and let Mexico celebrate that day as well, but let them understand that the other 364 days are "NO WETBACKS DAY".

( bubdaddy.blogspot.com/ )

It is my sincere hope that the ILLEGAL ALIENS choose to punish us even more severely by staying off the job ten or twenty years. We REALLY DON"T NEED THEM, and neither, it appears, does Mexico or anywhere else in Central or South America!

The awful truth they seek to hide is that NO ONE NEEDS THEM and THEY DON'T BELONG ANYWHERE, OR TO ANY COUNTRY. That has to hurt.

America did very well without them before they crept over the fences or floated across the rivers.

God willing, they will go home to their dilapidated shacks and farms and we will be much the better for their leaving.

"NO BEANER DAYS", "NO **** DAYS", "NO TACO BENDER DAYS" are days we can hope to enjoy soon..........

In the Meantime: "ME NO **** SPANISH"

To avoid this stain, I've begun the process of legally changing my last name so that it will no longer be of Spanish origin. I know my ancestors would be proud of me for making that difficult and painful decision. They would understand that I am AMERICAN........NOT A HISPANIC.

welcome aboard, but I hate to see anybody change their name because of all of this, your ancestors were LEGAL ... I found out Reus is as common in Spain as Smith is here

Diego's

To avoid this stain, I've begun the process of legally changing my last name so that it will no longer be of Spanish origin. I know my ancestors would be proud of me for making that difficult and painful decision. They would understand that I am AMERICAN........NOT A HISPANIC.

No way, Diego. YOU shouldn't have to change your name !! You just need to change your president.

Mamie, I fully agree this is a crying shame. Thanks, Bush.