Two million join immigration marches across the US

The unprecedented wave of immigrants' rights protests sweeping the United States reached a new high on Apr. 10 as an estimated two million people took to the streets in 140 different cities around the country–an extraordinary mobilization many supporters are likening to a second civil rights movement. Rallies were held from New York and Boston to Houston and Phoenix, to Seattle and San Francisco, and dozens of other communities. There was even a small but active group in Alaska. The biggest demonstration took place in Washington where many tens of thousands gathered to listen to speeches urging unity and proclaiming the Hispanic community's love of its adopted nation. Organizers estimated that more than 100,000 people rallied in Manhattan, turning the streets into a colorful sea of US and foreign flags. More than 80,000 took to the streets in Florida, with an estimated 75,000 people marching in Fort Myers. Many held signs with messages such as: "It is not about politics. It is about human beings. Stop being selfish." The demonstrations in most cities were largely peaceful. A rally in Tucson, AZ, was marred by counter-demonstrators who burned Mexican flags and police took six people into custody. "They want to have a law to make all us criminals," said Celerino Lopez, a construction worker from Mexico who attended the march in Washington. He and his wife crossed the desert to enter the US illegally nine years ago. He said there were no jobs or opportunities at home. "We come here to work, we are not terrorists. I want my child to learn English and to get a job," he said. On Apr. 9, up to half a million marched through the center of Dallas, while smaller protests rocked such unlikely outposts of immigrant activism as Des Moines, IA, and Boise, ID. Immigrant rights groups provided buses to bring in protesters to many cities, including low-paid workers who have become a crucial source of labor. The National Day of Action took many forms including a consumer boycott by immigrants and labor stoppages US meat companies said production in their factories fell sharply as the many Hispanic workers who slaughter cattle and cut meat joined the protests. The immigrants have reacted first and foremost to draconian legislation proposed by Republicans in the House of Representatives to criminalize anyone in the country without proper residency papers and to build a military fence along 700 miles of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border. But there is also a deeper feeling that in a nation of immigrants it is wrong for millions of people, whose labor is essential to the service economy, to live in the shadows, many of them woefully underpaid and at constant risk of exploitation or abrupt termination. Many who took part in the Washington march expressed such sentiments. "They are trying to make us criminals but we are not," said Kary Garcia, 17, a high school student whose parents brought her to the US seven years ago from Mexico City. "We do the jobs Americans don't want. We do the hard jobs." Illegal immigrants pay thousands of dollars for the chance of a new life. One Salvadorian man, Roberto, said he paid $13,000 to smugglers two years ago to bring him and his son. "It took one month. Train, bus, everything," he said. Politicians from both major parties have been blindsided by the protests, the size and passion of which have caught them off guard. The protest movement has split Republicans, with radicals sticking to their aggressively anti-immigrant agenda while others–including President Bush–have appealed for a compromise that would end the unregulated inflow of migrants across the Mexican border and establish a framework recognizing the realities of the US labor market. The Democrats, meanwhile, have largely failed to seize on the issue–appearing more afraid of offending US citizens who don't think immigrants should be cut any slack.