DENVER-
Upset by recent raids, a coalition of immigrant rights groups hope a planned march and rally Tuesday will help push Congress to change immigration laws.
Julien Ross of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said there will be people participating from across the state including from Fort Collins, Greeley, Longmont, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Durango, Alamosa, Grand Junction and Pueblo.
“We want to send a strong message to the Bush administration and the Congress to stop the raids that are dividing families and leaving children orphans,” Ross said.
In December, federal immigration agents raided Swift & Co. the meatpacking plant in Greeley as well as company plants in five other states, arresting a total of 1,282 workers.
Earlier this month, federal agents raided a potato farm in southern Colorado, arresting 19 suspected illegal immigrants and three others. The general manager and two other employees are accused of providing fake identification documents to illegal immigrants who worked there.
The event comes a year after rallies and protests across the country drew big crowds. Turnout is expected to be smaller Tuesday at marches, meetings and voter registration drives planned nationally.
Ross said about 30 groups helped organize the Denver rally and march. Participants will walk from a park to the state Capitol and then hold a rally at a park just outside downtown.
Anab Keire, a case worker at the Somali Community Center, said her group plans to participate.
Keire said Somalis are legal immigrants, many of them refugees, who work side-by-side with Hispanic immigrants at the Swift plant in Greeley and in Fort Morgan. Even though they are here legally, she said Somalis have some of the same troubles as other immigrants, whether it’s getting a driver’s license or figuring out how to find a place to live when they have no credit history.
She said Somali women have been told they must remove their head scarves in order to have their driver’s license photo even though Keire, who speaks fluent English, said she was allowed to leave hers on when she got her license last year.
“We want the United States know that we’re here too,” Keire said.
Diane Reimer, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Revenue, said driver’s license applicants can’t have anything on their face, including eyeglasses, because their facial characteristics must be compared with a photo database. Applicants who wear head coverings for religious reasons can leave them on as long as they are pushed back from their foreheads, she said.
Ross said the rally is part of bigger campaign to urge Congress to pass immigration reform by the end of the summer.
In March, the group called for a weeklong economic boycott, asking immigrants and their supporters to avoid spending money on anything except necessities for a week and not to send any money back home.
It also sent a group of activists to Washington to lobby for reform.
Last week, Hispanic churches in Denver also organized a vigil to pray for immigration reform. Pastor Arturo Vargas of Alianza Ministerial said he was concerned that Hispanics were worried and living in fear because of the state’s tougher immigration laws.
Last year, state lawmakers passed a series of new laws cracking down on illegal immigration. They set up a new state patrol unit to look for people smuggling immigrants and passed measures requiring people to prove they are citizens before receiving non-emergency state services.
