'Illegal aliens' want to live the American dream

Rachel L Swarns / Apr 11, 2006, 21:37 IST

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Waving American flags and blue banners that read "We Are America," chanting immigrants converged calling on Cong to offer legal status to illegal immigrants.

'Illegal aliens' want to live the American dream

WASHINGTON: Waving American flags and blue banners that read "We Are America,"throngs of cheering, chanting immigrants and their supporters converged on the nation's capital and in scores of other cities on Monday calling on Congress to offer legal status and citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants.
The demonstrators marched under mostly clear blue skies with Spanish-language music blaring, street vendors selling ice cream and parents clinging to mischievous toddlers and the banners of their homelands.
The rallies, whose mood was largely festive rather than angry, were the latest in recent weeks in response to a bill passed in the House that would speed up deportations, tighten border security and criminalise illegal immigrants.
A proposal that would have given most illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens collapsed in the Senate last week.

But Monday's gathering of tens of thousands of demonstrators in New York; Atlanta; Houston; Madison, Wis, and other cities also suggested that the millions of immigrants who have quietly poured into this country over the past 16 years, most of them Hispanic, may be emerging as a potent political force.
Over and over again, construction workers, cooks, gardeners, sales associates and students who said they had never demonstrated before said they were rallying to send a message to the nation's lawmakers.

Ruben Arita, a 30-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras who joined the demonstration in Washington, said he was marching for the first time because he wanted to push Congress to grant citizenship to people living here illegally and to recognise their struggles and their humanity.
"We want to be legal,"said Arita, a construction worker who has lived here for five years. "We want to live without hiding, without fear. We have to speak so that our voices are listened to and we are taken into account."
Academics and political analysts say the demonstrations represent the largest effort by immigrants to influence public policy in recent memory.
And the scope and size of the marches have astonished politicians on Capitol Hill as well as the churches and immigrant advocacy groups organizing the demonstrations, leading some immigrant advocates to hail what they describe as the beginnings of a new, largely Hispanic civil rights movement.
Some Republicans in Congress say the rallieshave also recalibrated the debate on immigration legislation, forcing lawmakers to consider the group's political muscle.
NYT News Service

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