I am Pablo

I received a disturbing phone call from Katty this morning. Apparently Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE) detained a number of undocumented immigrants last night. The news itself was disturbing in light of the highly political climate just weeks before mid-term elections. But even more disturbing was the manner in which the suspects were detained. ICE officers entered a Chicago bound train car - at random - and started asking those who looked Latino and African for documentation. Those who were not able to provide documentation were detained until they could provide said information. This is wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin! Who of us brings our passport everywhere they go? If the ICE officers thought that I looked Latino - I would have been detained! Since when can a federal US agency get away with such blatant discrimination!? How far are we from the point that all immigrants and visitors to our country will be required to wear some sort of identifying patch?!

ARRGH!! Am I the only one so incredible frustrated with the direction this country seems to be going?!

They just announced that the people marching today for Immigration reform in Chicago have exceeded 600,000!! We are making history in Chicago!! I just took this picture of the people arriving, and that isn’t even the larger group of people who should be arriving to Grant Park in ~10 minutes! I’ll be posting more pictures as more people arrive!

Here is a shot of my “workstation” from behind the press line. The monstrous speakers are behind us,.so I’ll probably be deaf by the time this is all said and done! (I know, not much of a change from the norm!)

We have finally situated ourselves on the South side of Grant park. It is currently 11am and all we can do now is wait for the march to show up here. As you can see in the pic, a small contingent of people have showed up to get sports front and center. I am with the press on this one, they needed somebody with an internet connection to upload pictures from the photographers throughout the rally! Everybody is really excited about the event, though they are impatient about the actual number of people who are going to show up. We have every local channel as well as almost all the national media! I’ve seen three different choppers overhead so far! As always, I’ll keep you guys posted!

Don’t think I’ve ever seen so many press trucks with sat dishes! This rally is going to be HUGE!

Katty and I are at another immigrant rights vigil. This one is just prior to the nation wide march that will be ocurring on May 1st for comprehensive immigration reform.

More pictures at Flickr

A crowd estimated by police at more than 500,000 boisterously marched in Los Angeles on Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall along the U.S.’ southern border.

Spirited but peaceful marchers — ordinary immigrants alongside labor, religious and civil rights groups — stretched more than 20 blocks along Spring Street, Broadway and Main Street to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting, “Sí se puede!” (Yes we can!).

Attendance at the demonstration far surpassed the number of people who protested against the Vietnam War and Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that sought to deny public benefits to undocumented migrants but was struck down by the courts. Police said there were no arrests or injuries except for a few cases of exhaustion.

-LA Times
(more…)

I somehow missed this posting on the 13th. I wish I had seen it as now it has dropped into obscurity. It does bring up a good question. Was the coverage adequate for the march? Is this part of some right-wing conspiracy as the poster alludes? I was surprised that Mike hadn’t heard about it in Detroit - but now that I read the comments to the post, I guess nobody really heard about it except Chicago. Is there a reason that main-stream national media didn’t pick up the story - or perhaps they just wrote a blurb about it? I would think that a 100,000 person march would make news everywhere. Perhaps protesting like this isn’t as effective as people would hope?

I left work a bit early today to meet Katty downtown at the Federal Plaza for the Immigrant Rights demonstration. I didn’t really know what to expect. As I was getting off of the “L” I could hear the crowd of people. As I turned the corner I was greeted by a huge amount of people as well as the mounted police, as seen in the picture above.

(more…)

After getting my arse in gear and setting my GPS to Batavia I was on my way. I really didn’t know what to expect from this event. It was organized by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Katty, as part of her new job, had arranged for the media to show up. Upon arrival, I was surprised to see just a group of about 40 people gathered around. As I was getting my bearings (mind you, I still wasn’t feeling 100%) I realized that I was in the Minuteman group who were making their stand against the immigrants. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Minuteman - I will refer you to their “about us” webpage as well as this incredible radio spot that I heard on NPR. (real-audio only, sorry!) They were against this:

Join hundreds of youth and students, along with religious and community leaders as we call on our Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to support Immigration Reform and the DREAM Act (would allow the children of undocumented immigrants - brought to this country by their parents and by no fault of their own - a chance to attend college).

The idea was that each student carry a cross representing one of the 463 immigrants who died crossing the border in 2005. They were to lay the crosses at Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s office in Batavia. All while chanting “We are Americans, Diplomas not Deaths”. It was more moving that I could have possibly imagined.

(more…)