Immigrant Rights
Photo (Bob Chamberlin / LAT)
Caption: Thousands protest against House-passed HR 4437, an anti-immigration bill that opponents say will criminalize millions of immigrant families and anyone who comes into contact with them.
Here’s the beginning of the report from the Los Angeles Times:
Joining what some are calling the nation’s largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting “Si se puede!” (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.
The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this country.
The New York Times report on the march in L.A. notes that despite the talk of security concerns, “the legislation would hurt Hispanics the most.” It then offers the following, somewhat searching, and also somewhat tarnished, statement from a marcher:
“When did you ever see a Mexican blow up the World Trade Center? Who do you think built the World Trade Center?'’ said David Gonzalez, 22, who marched in Los Angeles with a sign that read, ‘’I'm in my homeland.'’
