Posted on 04/12/2008 6:24:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
On May 1, a coalition of organizations will take to the streets in what has now become an annual march for the rights of undocumented immigrants. Many of the groups participating in the march say they will demand an end to the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids and the legalization of millions of undocumented residents.
The March 25th Coalition, the Coalition for Immigrant Human Rights (CHIRLA) and Hermandad Mexicana Transnacional, and several other groups are organizing the event and are calling on the immigrant community and all workers to come together in unity and participate in the “Super Thursday May 1st March.”
An invitation has been extended to democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who organizers say has not yet publicly expressed his position on recent local ICE raids.
“It is important to open a dialogue on immigration, it has to be included in the presidential campaign debate,” said Javier Rodriguez of the March 25 Coalition.
The march, which will start at two different locations —one at the corner of Olympic Blvd and Broadway and the other at MacArthur Park — will start at 2:00 p.m. Both marches will merge on Broadway and 5th Street, moving on to 1st Street and Broadway where the speakers’ stage will be set.
In an effort to attract more young people to the march, organizers will hold a music festival on April 20 at La Casa del Mexico, where eight Spanish rock bands will perform.
“We have distributed more than 100 thousand flyers and we have had over six press conferences at the local and national level. We still have three weeks left, we will motivate even more people during this time,” said Rodriguez.
Organizers have also invited Kate del Castillo and the cast of “Bajo la Misma Luna,” a film about a child from Mexico who crosses the border to reunite with his mother in the U.S, and the popular band Los Tigres del Norte, also part of the film, to be at the march, said Rodriguez.
“We’ll be asking for an end to the raids and the mistreatment and abuse of immigrants,” said Gloria Saucedo, Director of Hermandad Mexicana Transnacional in the San Fernando Valley, where the largest number of raids and deportations has occurred. “We want to take advantage of the opportunity to use our civil rights and express ourselves,” she said.
“It’s time to ask legislators to stop persecuting hardworking people,” CHIRLA’s Executive Director Angelica Salas told EGP, referring to recent anti-illegal immigrant legislation propositions like AB 2102, authored by Mimi Walters (R-73), which Salas says requires every state agency to use the E-Verify program to verify an employee’s immigration status and eligibility to work in the U.S. The program has been shown by several government-sponsored commissions to have a high error rate.
Other measures making their way through the legislature which the groups say are anti-immigrant, are AB 1882 introduced by Martin Garrick (R-74) that requires an arresting agency to notify the appropriate federal agency if the arresting agency has a reason to believe that a person arrested for driving under the influence of an alcoholic beverage and/or drug is an illegal immigrant.
AB 2601 introduced by John J. Benoit (R-64) would prohibit the allocation of vehicle license fee revenues to any city that is declared to be a sanctuary city. Those funds would instead be allocated to cities wanting additional law enforcement training concerning federal immigration law.
“What we are asking for with this march, is the legalization of all workers and a stop to the repression against immigrant workers,” said Carlos Montes of the March 25 Coalition.
Around the world, May 1st is celebrated as International Workers Day. May 1st also honors the “Chicago Martyrs,” labor union members who were sentenced to death for participating in a strike demanding an 8-hour working day. Union members started the strike on May 1,1886; it lasted 4 days and culminated with the Chicago Haymarket Tragedy.
But in the United States, Labor Day, celebrated the first Monday of September, is the day set aside to honor workers. The effort to gain a holiday or day of rest for workers was begun in 1825 by the Central Labor Union. Congress approved Labor Day as a national holiday in 1894.
Last year, during the May 1st march, some demonstrators threw food and water bottles at police, who responded by firing rubber bullets at demonstrators and reporters and struck them with batons, injuring more than 200 people at MacArthur Park.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton recently assured that when marchers gather next month, the LAPD would be “peaceful and professional,” and said the LAPD has been training to avoid a repeat of last year’s incident.
Since last year’s rally, 7,400 officers and 400 police recruits have received training in incident management strategies and tactics, said Cmdr Officer Sandy Jo MacArthur.
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Editorial@egpnews.com
ABSOLUTELY before it's too late .... Nice sign up date BTW ... Proud Latina Republican
Another liberal recent sign-up, pretty consistent liberal posting history you have so far.
Why become a citizen? You get all the benefits of citizens and the politicians are more responsive if you’re an illegal.
“Any attempt at mass deportation will start a war. Is that what you want?”
Bring it on.
“Any attempt at mass deportation will start a war. Is that what you want?”
Suits me. I’m sick of the arrogant “you owe me” attitude.
I’ve got my own kids to provide for. I don’t want to be forced to pay for yours.
If that's what it takes, fine with me. Bring it.
Smells of a threat, why did you run off? Blackbird.
Read your history, you dip s---.
Yes, if it takes war to save our country and seize it back, BRING IT ON.
I for one will fight and will encourage others to fight and to take up arms to defend our nation and reclaim it.
WHICH SIDE WILL YOU BE ON?
YES
“Yes, if it takes war to save our country and seize it back, BRING IT ON.”
They are...and ‘we’ do what? Sit on our butts making phone calls, sending faxes & emails! Our D.C. Leadership is not on our side of the issue and there are very few organized groups with a small number of members out there who are literally confronting and fighting the fight. Unless or until Americans are willing to get face-to-face with illegal aliens & their supporters, at these type of May Day events or wherever they are organized, there will be no seizing it back. It’s going to have to get very ugly or it isn’t going to get better. And while the majority of Americans, like you and me, are in opposition, too many are NOT soooo in opposition that they won’t rejct supporting the author of McShamnesty.
Is that a threat? I'll be the first in line to volunteer ....you just wait and see what happens if these pro-illegals try to start something....
“Any attempt at mass deportation will start a war. Is that what you want?”
Sorry, chica, the war has already begun. And it wasn’t the Americans who started it.
Your strawman statement attempts to justify the presence of 20 - 30 million illegal aliens. This is our country--we'll keep who we decide to keep and deport the rest if that's what it takes. But it will go much faster than you think, thanks to "deportation by attrition" -- works just fine.
Your friends across the border who come here without following our immigration laws are lawbreakers and fully deserve to be treated accordingly.
We are far past the point when deadly force should be used to protect our borders.
By the way, in case you are unaware of it, Free Republic is a conservative site for conservatives. You don't sound like a conservative. You need to read the founder's several statements about this. You sound more like a GOP Big Tent RINO, an endangered species around here.
Well, the last war with Mexico worked out pretty well for us.
Americans are fed up with illegal aliens. They have broken the law by marching across the border, and many break the law again by taking someone elses’s identity;driving without licenses, insurance or bothering to register their cars, creating crime with other illegals, taking tax dollars out of American workers’ pockets to pay for their Food Stamps, Welfare, childbirth, infant supplies and food,emergency room care, and paying for the education of anchor kids. Hospitals are going out of business thanks to illegals getting free care.
Then they ship as much money home as possible, so more money flies out of the country. So, Mexico doesn;t do a thing for their citizens, because of the money being shipped home.
If that isn’t bad enough, illegals kill and rape 25 or more Americans every day. They fill up our jails, and cost us more money. We’ve sent you our manufacturing jobs through NAFTA, and we’re still gringoes in need of reconquista.
We’ve had enough. Mexico doesn’t out up with illegals, why should we? And quite frankly, MS-13 and TB is not my idea of cultural exchange
Illegals need to take their kids, and get back across the border and get in line. Then we decide who we allow over, based on what they can CONTRIBUTE to our society. That’s how every other country does it, including Mexico.
And where is it written that 99% of our immigrants have to come from Mexico and Central America? There’s 200 other countries where people would love to come here.
If they want a war, then war they will get.
We’ve had it.
Ping!
“in what has now become an annual march for the rights of undocumented immigrants. “
Swell.
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