Thousands of people marched from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan yesterday in support of immigrants’ rights, the largest such rally so far in the New York area and the latest in a string of marches tied to immigration legislation under consideration in Congress.The New York rally came a week after more than a half-million people demonstrated in Los Angeles, and after weeks of protests in cities from Chicago to Denver to Phoenix.
“There is no victory yet,” said Angélica M. Peña, a spokeswoman for the International Immigrants Foundation, one of the lead organizers for yesterday’s event. “We have many more changes we need to get. We have to fight.”
On a balmy spring Saturday, some wrapped themselves in the flags of a score of foreign nations, others waved the Stars and Stripes over their heads, and many did both. Some sang “God Bless America,” while others chanted pro-immigration slogans in Spanish. Many pushed along strollers carrying their American-born children, living symbols of the dual identities that have made the debate over illegal immigration so charged.
“We came here because we love America and we want to stay here,” said Liliana Melgarejo, 31, who immigrated from Argentina 13 years ago and works in Manhattan as a housekeeper. She said she and her husband had two children, both born in the United States. “My children are American. I love my country, too, but there is no future there. Here, they can be a doctor, anything.”
Ms. Melgarejo, who carried an American flag, also weighed in on the presence of foreign flags at yesterday’s march and at others across the country, something that critics have seized upon as a symbol of recent immigrants’ unwillingness to fully embrace their adopted country.
“That is not the message we want to send,” she said. “I feel that they should take the biggest American flag they can find and wave it in the air.”
The crowd of thousands, mostly Hispanic, gathered near Brooklyn Borough Hall, by midmorning. Over the next three hours, they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, spanning neighborhoods that were home to successive waves of European and Asian immigrants, and took in views of the Statue of Liberty. By noon, the bridge was jammed. Those who came across spilled onto Centre Street and massed in Foley Square, where immigration advocates, members of the clergy and elected officials mounted a small stage to speak to the crowd. By 2:00 p.m., the square and the surrounding streets were packed with people.
United States Representative Nydia Velázquez, Democrat of New York, came on stage chanting, “Sí, se puede!,” the old farm workers’ cry meaning “Yes, we can!” She took aim at the Republican Party’s stance on immigration issues. “We should not be in the business of criminalizing undocumented immigrants.”
Thomas Suozzi, the Nassau County executive and a candidate for governor, tried out his own Spanish skills in front of the crowd.
“My father was born in Italy and came to the United States as a young boy to live the American dream like all the people here today are,” he said. “So I say, justicia para todos. Justice for all.”
Adolfo Carrión Jr., the Bronx borough president, also spoke, as did Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York and State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., a Puerto Rican native and another of the key organizers of the march.
In Newark, about 300 students, union members and immigration activists marched to a church yard near City Hall for an hourlong training rally.
Marching from Essex County College, the crowd chanted, “No justice, no peace,” and “Immigrants united will never be divided,” cries that were echoed a few miles away in Lower Manhattan.
Many at the Brooklyn Bridge protest appeared acutely aware of the details of different immigration legislation being debated in Washington, and some made clear that they regarded certain proposals as direct assaults on them.
“They want to make it illegal to support immigrants,” said Hector Marrero, 27, referring to legislation approved by the House of Representatives that critics say would criminalize any aid offered to illegal immigrants.
Mr. Marrero, who was born in Puerto Rico, also criticized the bill’s defenders for saying it was intended to bolster homeland security. “How many Latinos have committed terrorist acts?” he asked.
Near the middle of the bridge, an elderly man did a brisk business in small American flags, $2 each. Asked how many he had sold, the man replied that he could not answer.
“I don’t speak English,” he said haltingly.
From New York Times