Posted on 03/28/2006 10:10:51 AM PST by BurbankKarl
Edited on 03/28/2006 10:15:04 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Police herded students off an access road leading to the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro on Tuesday as demonstrations continued against possible immigration reforms. Student marches were also staged Tuesday morning in Bellflower and Compton.
Despite rain and a lockdown in the Los Angeles Unified School District, a group of about 200 students massed near 223rd Street in the Harbor Gateway area in San Pedro and started walking south on Avalon Boulevard shortly after 8 a.m. A separate group of students in San Pedro tried to get onto the Vincent Thomas Bridge, but police stopped them and turned them around, detaining a few.
In the San Fernando Valley, students reportedly walked out of Birmingham High School.
Los Angeles Unified campuses are locked down Tuesday, but the immigration bill that sparked two days of protests will be a topic of classroom discussion, officials said.
More than 36,000 students from 26 school districts throughout Los Angeles County skipped classes on Monday and marched through streets and on freeways to protest the immigration bill being debated by the U.S. Senate.
About 1,000 students rallied for much of the day at Los Angeles City Hall, with several representatives meeting privately with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The mayor later spoke to the students, saying their voices were being heard, but urging them to return to class.
Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton said Monday's rainy forecast would also likely prevent any more mass walkouts by students.
LAUSD officials said middle and high school classes throughout the district would have classroom discussions on Tuesday about a bill introduced by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., which would crack down on employers hiring illegal workers and people smuggling illegal immigrants into the country.
"We will have in-class teachings for students so that they can have conversations to deal with this issue in a very productive way," said Rowena Lagrosa, executive officer of educational services for the district. "We are being proactive so that those students will show up for school tomorrow."
The class discussions will also address freedom of speech, civil protests and events in U.S. history that have involved public protests, according to a district statement.
In addition to the lockdown, police presence will be beefed up on LAUSD campuses, district officials said.
Students who took part in the mass demonstration on Monday and last Friday could face discipline ranging from suspension to exclusion from cebtain school-sponsored functions, Lagrosa said.
The LAPD was placed on citywide tactical alert during Monday's protest, which led to five arrests during a demonstration at Van Nuys City Hall, LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon said.
Some students also snarled traffic when they marched on the Harbor (110) and Hollywood (101) freeways in downtown Los Angeles. Other students were reported marching on freeways in San Pedro and Orange County.
"We may be illegal immigrants, but we are human," Metropolitan High School senior Melania Preciado said at City Hall as she waved a Mexican flag. "We deserve the same rights as everyone else, not be treated like criminals."
The Sensenbrenner bill, HR 4437, would require employers to verify Social Security numbers with the Department of Homeland Security, increase penalities for immigrant smuggling and stiffen penalities for undocumented immigrants who reenter the United States after having been removed.
Under the bill, approved last December by the House of Representatives, local law enforcement agencies would be reimbursed for detaining illegal immigrants. Refugees with aggravated felony convictions would also be barred from receiving green cards.
The U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee softened the immigration reform bill on Monday by voting to create a path for some of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens without first leaving the country.
Under the version voted on by the committee, additional foreign workers would be allowed to enter the United States temporarily under a program that also could lead to citizenship.
Additionally, the committee adopted an amendment by Sen Richard Durbin, D- Ill., that would protect charitable organizations and churches from criminal charges for providing aid to illegal immigrants.
The bill will now move to the Senate floor, where an intensive debate likely to find Republicans fighting each other is expected to begin this week.
On Monday, some 36,000 students from 25 Los Angeles County school districts walked out of class, officials said, with more than 1,000 protesting outside City Hall for much of the day. The youths tied up streets and even made dangerous forays onto freeways to loudly protest against legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and build fences along part of the U.S.-Mexican border.Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa praised the students' action, but also urged them to return to school.
I want you to know that there are people right now all across the country that agree with you that we need immigration reform that rewards work, that gives people a pathway to citizenship, that allows families to stay together, Villaraigosa told the crowd.
California state Sen. Richard Alarcon speaks to students gathered near the Van Nuys Federal Building Monday to protest proposed immigration reforms. Authorities reported that more than 36,000 students from Los Angeles County schools walked out of class to join in protest marches. Other protests were reported across the state and in Washington, Phoenix, Detroit and Yakima, Wash.
I used to work near 223rd & Avalon.
Lots of businesses there are owned by legal immigrants. (one of whom signed my paycheck.)
Good job, amigos, preventing people who obey our laws from making a living.......
Whenever people start saying stuff like "we're humans," or "we're human beings," it means they have virtually no argument, or no argument at all.
That certainly appears to be the story here.
So if I enter Mexico illegally, enter my son into a Mexican public school at Mexican taxpayer expense while waving an American flag around, I should expect the same rights as Mexican citizens?
Nothing like STRICT discipline to get those unruly students back in line. Problem solved, right?
Give it a try and these guys would bust several caps in you.
isn't truancy a crime? imagine how much revenue LA could generate issuing the fines for all these truant students.
PARTY!!!
Alarcon is a prick and his sister is a board member of the Communist Party LA Chapter. He once told me "The primary job of a legislator is to spend your money." Unfrickinbelievable! LA is turning into Paris or some other third world banana republic.
The Mexico lobby has gotten what it wants and they have the numbers necessary to shut down the city whenever they want. They have turned LA into NY in the 1900's. Its only one more step to hatchet wielding mobs roaming the streets 'taking' what they feel their deserve.
I heard a news report that at the end of the day, around 5pm, buses arrived to take the children back to their schools. My question is - do the school bus drivers get extra pay because it was during their siesta time?
Tony Villars
Better yet, migrate to France and get a job for life and if you're employer wants the right to fire you in the first two years, simply burn the city down!
"We may be illegal immigrants, but we are human," Metropolitan High School senior Melania Preciado said at City Hall as she waved a Mexican flag. "We deserve the same rights as everyone else, not be treated like criminals."
I think this pretty much sums it up. They acknowledge their illegal status but claim they are not crimminals, all the while the bleeding hearts clubs are ready to remove their guilt by making them "Legal".
Before letting any of these kiddies back into school, make their parents show that they are in the country legally. If not, take them and their parents back to Mexico where they belong. They can protest there all they want to.
I'd start with Melania Preciado. Wonder what her parents would feel about her activism if they all got put on the bus.
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