Texas rallies call attention to immigrant issues

AUSTIN - Immigrants rallied in Brownsville, McAllen and the Texas Capitol on Tuesday as border and Latino leaders reflected on how a year of intense debate has shaped national and state policies.

Hundreds of people waved American and Mexican flags outside the Capitol. Like the rally in Austin a year ago, they brought grandparents and children, and many chanted "sí se puede."

In Brownsville, about 100 demonstrators, also chanting "sí se puede," or "yes, it can be done," made their way to the Jacob Brown Auditorium demonstrating for immigration rights through the streets of downtown Brownsville.

Diana Flores, an undocumented immigrant, accompanied by her two daughters, walked hastily down Ringgold Street to keep up with the "May Day" marchers.

"We are fighting for our rights," she said. "We want people to know that we are here, we are for real, we are not made of stone - we have feelings and emotions, too."

The 32-year-old said she was taking part in the "peaceful walk," hoping it would bring awareness to the cause of immigration reform.

At a distance, 11-year-old Santos Ramirez held up a poster that read "No to the Wall," and wore an orange prisoner jumpsuit.

"I'm wearing this because it signifies what illegals wear when they are in prison," he said. "They have to wear this all the time, it's not nice."

The crowds yelled in Spanish, "What do we want? Justice!," and "What don't we want? The Wall!"

Matthew Aguilar, 10, a student at Champion Elementary, also wore an orange prisoner jumpsuit.

"When people get detained, they wear this, and then they get sent back to Mexico," he said.

Similar demonstrations took place throughout the country with 100,000 marchers in Chicago, 25,000 in Los Angeles and thousands more marching in other cities throughout the U.S. Last year on May 1, more than 1 million marchers throughout the nation demonstrated for immigration reform.

In McAllen, 10-year-old Samantha Trujillo said she knows exactly what she wants - comprehensive immigration reform.

"I've been at all the rallies," said the fourth-grader as she prepared to march down Bicentennial Boulevard as part of the nationwide demonstration for immigrant rights.

"I want justice for the people," said her mother, Grasiela Ortiz, of San Juan, who became a U.S. citizen in 1991 after emigrating from Monterrey. "They're suffering a lot. And they need a lot of help, especially the kids."

Mirroring a nationwide trend, the McAllen rally, sponsored by La Union del Pueblo Entero, was significantly smaller than last year's.

But Juanita Valdez, director of LUPE's South Texas chapter, is more optimistic than she was last year that illegal immigrants will soon get a chance to become residents.

"Since last year, the focus has remained, nationally and locally, that we need to have immigration reform," she said.

Tuesday's rally and march attracted between 1,200 and 1,500 people, Valdez said, a huge drop from the event's estimated 3,000 to 4,000 attendees in 2006.

"People are just afraid of being out in the open," she said. "Last year, heading up to the march, we hadn't heard about all the raids that are happening now."

Only a few people waved Mexican flags, which were criticized by some people during last year's nationwide marches as being un-American.

Although no counter-protesters could be seen along the march route, some local residents said illegal immigrants should be sent back to their home countries and not given permanent residency.

"They do help in some says, but they're destroying everything," said Lupe Cantu, a Mission resident who sees illegal immigrants pass by his house near the border. "Why can't they picket in their home country, in Mexico, to their president: We need jobs, we need help?"

Cantu, a retired postal worker whose family has lived in Texas since it was part of Mexico, said illegal immigrants lower wages and strain government services.

In Austin, Jose Casteneda, 34, said he returned to the rally this year to demonstrate his concern that there remains no guest-worker program in place.

Casteneda, a sheet-metal technician, lives in Round Rock, north of Austin. But his family lives in Guadalajara, and he has not seen his wife and three sons for two years because none of the family members have legal papers to travel between the two countries, he said.

"We all want a better life," he said. "We pay thousands, millions of dollars in taxes. We want rights."

There were protesters to the protesters, too. One man stood on a street corner holding a sign high above his head that said, "Illegal aliens are criminals," as marchers flooded past him and filled a closed-down Congress Avenue.

Inside the Capitol, state lawmakers have debated bills that would require truck drivers to speak English and prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition.

Bills proposed early in the session that would have removed state aid, including health care and public education, for children of illegal immigrants died before they were heard.

Luis Figueroa, legislative staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said "cooler heads have prevailed" in the Texas Legislature.

"I think, by and large, Texas understands that it needs immigrants, and the Legislature has reflected that," Figueroa said.

Today leaders from Hidalgo County and elsewhere on the border are scheduled to visit the Capitol to call on state leaders to put pressure on the federal government to oppose the building of a wall on the border.

Brownsville Herald reporter José Borjón, Monitor reporter Michael Barnett, La Frontera staff writer Martha Leticia Hernandez and Monitor photographer Alex Jones contributed to this report.