Los Angeles – Immigration rallies held nationwide Tuesday produced only a fraction of the million-plus protesters who turned out last year, as fear about raids and frustration that the marches haven’t led to reforms kept many people away.
In Los Angeles, where several hundred thousand turned out last year, about 25,000 attended a downtown rally, said police Capt. Andrew Smith. In Chicago, where more than 400,000 swarmed the streets a year earlier, police officials put initial estimates at about 150,000.
Organizers said marchers felt a sense of urgency to keep immigration from getting pushed back by the ’08 presidential elections.
“There’s no reason a pro-immigration bill can’t be passed. That’s one of the messages being sent today,” said Chicago protester Shaun Harkin, 34, of Northern Ireland, who has lived in the U.S. as a legal resident for 15 years.
Melissa Woo, a 22-year-old American citizen who immigrated from South Korea, carried a Korean flag over her shoulder in Chicago as she criticized politicians for “buckling at the knees.” Immigrants “aren’t pieces of trash, we’re human beings,” she said.
Protests were mostly peaceful, except for an evening rally at a park in Los Angeles, where some suspected of throwing rocks and bottles at police were arrested. Police fired rubber bullets and used batons to push the crowd out of the street and onto the sidewalk. It was not immediately known if anyone was injured.
Organizers said an increase in immigration raids in recent months have left many immigrants afraid to speak out in public. Others believe that the marches have not pushed Congress to pass immigration legislation, and many groups are now focusing on citizenship and voter-registration drives instead of street demonstrations.
Organizers said smaller crowds do not mean the movement to win a path to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants has lost momentum.
“People are saying we need to get together to demonstrate unity,” said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “But with so much happening, and so many concrete victories, you couldn’t say the movement is weakening.”
