Immigration rallies mark one-year anniversary in L.A.

Ana Beatriz Cholo

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

The rallies didn’t come close to bringing the crowds of the event they commemorated.

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, a group of anti-illegal immigration demonstrators demanded stiffer enforcement of U.S. borders and verbally clashed with pro-immigration forces on the streets.

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

Despite the lower-than-anticipated turnout, rally organizer Marta Rojas, an immigrant 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 March 25, 2006 march followed legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that would make it a felony to enter the U.S. illegally.

In Northern California, thousands marched for immigrant rights amid waving flags and beating drums in downtown Santa Rosa. The crowd, which police estimated at 7,000 people, nearly matched last year’s rally, which drew an estimated 8,000 to 10,000.

“We’re going off the momentum that was created last year. We’re seeing that next year is going to a presidential election year, so the time is now to press as a community to make this happen,” Roberto Garcia, a march organizer with the United Farm Workers union, told KGO-TV.

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 in Los Angeles, 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 Hispanic-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. Lofton said she was representing “my community, the black community” of Watts — an area that has seen a surge of Hispanic immigrants in the past decade. She said she is against illegal immigration regardless of race.

“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.”

(Associated Press)