Thread: Houston:Rally calls for immigration reform, end to raids

Becky Smith, of Texas City, shouts across to protesters who support amnesty for illegal immigrants as they gathered in Antioch Park in the 1400 block of Smith St in downtown Houston on Thursday.
Johnny Hanson: Chronicle



May 1, 2008, 11:49PM
Rally calls for immigration reform, end to raids


By SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

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Images from the immigrant rights rally More than 200 supporters of immigrant rights rallied in downtown Houston on Thursday, calling for an overhaul of immigration laws and an end to a recent spate of workplace raids.

The afternoon march and rally at downtown's Antioch Park coincided with national protests in major cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. The Houston protest also drew a few dozen counter-protesters, who gathered across the street, yelling through bullhorns and carrying signs that read "Stop the Invasion."

Despite contentious exchanges, the march and rally were peaceful and Houston police reported no injuries or arrests.

For years, immigrant advocates have pushed for Congress to pass a bill that would offer legal status to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Despite multiple bipartisan proposals, each bill has failed amid protests from "amnesty" opponents, who argued for stricter enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border.

With Thursday's march, organizers said they were hoping to bring attention to a bill pending in Congress called the SAVE Act, or the Secure America with Verification and Enforcement Act, which would add an estimated 8,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents and require employers to use federal databases to verify the status of all workers. The SAVE Act offers no path toward legalization for illegal immigrants in the U.S.

With an American flag draped loosely over her shoulders, 15-year-old Karen Fajardo tried to block out the counter-protesters Thursday afternoon and focus on the speakers calling for immigration reform.


Trying to grow up quickly
Fajardo said her parents have lived in a kind of legal limbo for more than 20 years. The U.S.-born teenager has never seen her grandparents, who are in Mexico, she said. She worries every day that her mother and father may be picked up in an immigration sweep, she said, and not come home from work.

Fajardo is trying to grow up quickly in case she's left to care for her 11-year-old sister, she said. She's hoping to get a summer job — over her mother's objections — and is close to getting her driver's license.

She tried to be diplomatic about the counter-protesters.

"We're peaceful," she said. "We're all here and we have to try to be as communicative as possible."

Still, she said, "It's frustrating. They say we don't pay bills. We do. We work as hard as them. We work with them."

Curtis Collier, who led the counter-protest across from the park, said he hopes his message came out clearly.

"The message is this: If you are in this country illegally, we want you to go home," said Collier, 47, who leads a Houston-area group called U.S. Border Watch. "We are here to defend the sovereignty and freedom of the United States of America."

He watched the rally across the street, and listened to a young man with a bullhorn who yelled "We are not going anywhere ... We are going to change the face of America!"


Worried about raids
"They're not here to talk about becoming part of America," Collier said. "They want to change the face of America!"

Linda Quintanilla, 62, who has lived in Houston for 20 years, said she is concerned about workplace immigration raids across the country, including a bust at Shipley Do-Nuts on April 16 in Houston that led to the detention of 20 workers.

She carried a sign that read: No Human Being Is Illegal.

"The laws are really inhumane," she said. "These are very hard-working people, and they are being demonized."

susan.carroll@chron.com


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5746788.html

"We're peaceful," she said. "We're all here and we have to try to be as communicative as possible."

Yes and that means speaking ENGLISH! Something illegal aliens have refused to do! GET OUT!