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In the past few months millions of immigrants and their allies have emerged from their homes, work and school taking to the street in protest of anti-immigration legislation proposed by congress. The recent immigrant rights demonstrations were sparked by the passage of House of Representatives bill HR4437 last November. As the bill moved to the senate for debate immigrants and their allies organized to stand up defend themselves, their neighbors, their families and their communities.
Bill HR4437 would give the government the power to deport or imprison all undocumented immigrants in the nation, close off our boarder and would even make immigrant allies subject to felonies and imprisonment if found guilty of aiding undocumented immigrants. This could include hiring immigrant workers, working with immigrants, providing immigrant services, or even giving someone a ride in your car. The bill is ridiculous, said sophomore Franciz Divinagracia from West Seattle High School.
Facing this issue, Seattle has turned out two of the largest marches the city has ever seen on May 1st and April 10th each exceeding 30,000 people.
On May 1, May Day, students, immigrants and allies skipped school or walked out, while immigrant workers and their allies went on strike or didnt come to work. The strike was meant to display how immigrant labor or lack there of would impact the United States economy. Whether it was sacrificing a day of education or a days pay, thousands of protesters gathered in Seattle at St. Marys Church for a silent march to the federal building.
In the Seattle School District, more than 400 students who are immigrants, or come from immigrant families and their allies were marked absent, including students from West Seattle. It doesnt seem fair. People come here because its easier to find jobs, said Connie, sophomore at West Seattle, who was absent from school to participated in the May Day demonstration.
In Federal Way, nearly 80% of the Latino school population were absent from school to attend the Seattle march. The Federal Way and SeaTac area has been well known for numerous student walkouts in the last few months organized by Latino Liberation Movement, Youth Against War and Racism, Radical Women, Freedom socialist Party, and Socialist Alternative. High School and Middle School Students walked out at 9am, met at Angle Lake Park, marched down Pac Highway and once even marched to the Homeland Security building in Tukwila for a rally just outside the building.
When the Highline School District threatened to suspend students who walked out, community leaders, organizations and parents went to the school board calling for the board not to suspend the students for expressing their right to freedom of speech and political dissent. Eventually, the school board announced that no students would be penalized or suspended for their actions.
On May Day, as people arrived Judkins Park for the silent march speakers addressed the crowd who were mostly Latino but Whites, Blacks, Asians, Arabs and Native Americans also participated in the marched. People held proudly and waved flags from Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, the United States and the Philippines - showing we are a nation of immigrants.
The media and march organizers had differing estimates about the number of people who participated in the march. News reporters estimated 20,000-30,000 participants, while organizers estimated 65-75,000 thousand demonstrators. Thats nearly three times as many that showed up to the April 10th demonstration, which turned out more than 30,000 people, estimated by Mayor Nickel.
On April 10th people also gathered at St. Marys church to demonstrate for immigrant rights, but before the march a youth and student rally was held at Hing-Hay Park in Chinatown with over 100 young adults and students. The rally was organized by Latino Liberation Movement (LLM) , Youth Against War and Racism and Socialist Alternative. I even got to co-MC with a Latina leader of LLM.
After the youth rally we marched to St. Marys church to join thousands of protesters at the church. As the march began thousands of people poured out of Judkins Park and into the streets. The crowd enthusiastically chanted Estados Unidos esta nada sin Latinos the U.S is nothing without Latinos. We also chanted, Si se puede yes we can.
As demonstrators marched past buildings, people stopped working and came to windows or stood on top building roofs and waved to the crowd in support of the action. When demonstrators finally arrived at the federal building we were thrilled to watch Seattles hip-hop group, The Blue Scholars, who kicked off the rally.
Even though Seattle turned out two of its hugest rallies, other cities around the Nation have been turning out anywhere from 15,000- 2 million people. In Chicago, 700,000 and 400,000 demonstrated and 145,000 students were absent, in Yakima, 15,000 demonstrated, 50,000 in Atlanta, 1-2 million and 650,000 in Los Angeles and 72,000 student absences, 15,000 in Houston, 30,000 in San Francisco, 50,000 in San Jose, California, and 75,000 in Denver and in Dallas 500,000 demonstrators.
Though many of these demonstrations were focused on the House of Representative bill 4437, last week the Senate passed the Frist bill F2454. This bill would deny amnesty to immigrants already in the United States, but it would create some kind of pathway to citizenship for some immigrants, kick others out of the country and create a guest workers program. The bill also allocates money to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.
The bill would give undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country 5 or more years the opportunity to apply for documentation after paying $32oo and back taxes though it would force undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. under 5 years to leave the country. Once workers left the country they could apply for a work visa and possibly reenter the country under a guest workers program. The guest workers program would allow U.S. corporations to exploit these workers by not requiring corporations to follow U.S. labor laws. For instance they would not have to pay workers minimum wage or follow child labors or U.S. standard working condition or hours. The law would even give corporations the power to send workers back to their country of origin at will.
Now that the house and senate have passed H.R 4437 and Frist (F) 2454 bills they must work out compromises between the bills before it goes to President Bush to be signed into law. With continuing changes between legislation H.R 4437 and Frist (F) 2454 more marches and immigrant rights demonstrations are expected.
On May Day, in other parts of the world actions for workers rights also took place in Switzerland, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Beirut, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Greece, Chile, Turkey, Sweden, Mexico, Indonesia, Russia, the Philippines and Cuba.