http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_4110042

Organizers of L.A. march plan more activity

By Rachel Uranga, Staff Writer
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Organizers of the Los Angeles pro-immigration march that drew half a million people and attracted international attention in March have plans for more street demonstrations in September to urge Congress to pass an immigration reform bill.

Similar marches were organized in Chicago this month, drawing 10,000 protesters. With pressure mounting on both sides of the debate, immigration reform could once again come to center stage.

‘‘We are out there pushing for better and real immigration reform. ... People are out there waiting, they want to march,'' said Javier Rodriguez, an organizer with the March 25 Coalition.

Rodriguez said a Labor Day weekend march would follow the same route as the pro-immigrant march downtown on March 25, and like that march, organizers would rely on word-of-mouth and media to spread details. They are calling for full amnesty for immigrants.

Another march in the state is planned for that weekend in Wilmington by the newly formed Liberty and Justice for Immigrants Coalition composed of Teamsters, Hermandad Mexicana and the Mexican American Political Association.

‘‘We prefer no bill this year (over) a bad bill. We can go out there and demonstrate that people are willing and encouraged to defeat both pieces of legislation this year,'' said Nativo Lopez, president of MAPA.

Organizers of the protests that swept the country this spring credit the images of millions of immigrants and their sympathizers taking to the street for stalling immigration reform in Congress.

Protesters centered their anger on a House bill by James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., that would have made all illegal immigrants criminals and created a 700-mile wall along the Mexican border. The bill garnered support from many House Republicans.

But other observers say more marches could create even further division between both sides of the red-hot immigration debate.

‘‘All it does is solidify the people that are for them and those that are against them; it's unclear how it impacts people on the fence,'' said Ricardo Ramirez, an assistant professor of political science at University of Southern California.

Since the marches, dozens of groups from immigrant rights activists to political associations have launched citizenship and voting drives to focus the momentum created by the mass protests into political clout. And anti-illegal immigrant groups have redoubled their efforts, watching their membership rolls soar.

House Republicans have even created their own immigration road show holding hearings in more than a dozen states over the summer aimed at forcing President Bush to cave to the House's more restrictive legislation.

‘‘The experience is that these marches have backfired,'' said Ira Melhman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group advocating tighter border controls. ‘‘The American public look at these and they are outraged. There are millions of people breaking the law and they are being rewarded for it.''