Protesters March for Immigrant Rights

by Kim Mitchell

DENVER – More than 800 people joined a march supporting immigration
rights this morning, culminating in a lunchtime, festival-like
gathering at Lincoln Park.

The march began shortly after 9 a.m. at Rude Park and proceeded without any problems, police said.

“It’s
been a fantastic group. I think this went off without a hitch,” said
police Capt. Joseph Padilla. “They’ve all been cooperative.”

A group calling itself “World Can’t Wait” led the march.

“This
is Germany in the 1930s all over again!” according to a press
statement. “The past seven years of the Bush regime have seen a
dramatic escalation of attacks on immigrants on many fronts.”

But marchers say they don’t believe there would be significant changes under a Barack Obama
Immigrant rights advocates marched on Denver on August 28, 2008.

“Obama
has made no call to reverse this whole ugly program,” the statement
says. “Stop the attacks on Immigrants! Stop the ICE raids! Stop the
Criminal Bush Program!”

Police monitored streets along the route
after hearing reports that anti-immigration protesters might try to
heckle the crowd, but they encountered no problems.

“We want to
build bridges and not walls between our countries,” march organizer
Rudy Gonzales said. “We want pathways to citizenship. We want to
decriminalize immigration.”

March supporters included those with T-shirts that proclaim: “Immigrant rights are human rights.”

Felipe
Perez, 32, of Denver, said he is a first-generation citizen who lays
tile for work, and that several members of his family were deported,
including his aunt who was pregnant when one day she disappeared.

“We
didn’t know what happened to her. Something has to be done to open our
borders. I still have family members who come here to make a better
life,” he said.

The Rev. Ron Stief, of Washington, D.C., helped
organize the march. He said he has traveled the country visiting
illegal immigrants held in detention centers.

“There is no issue
more important than how we care for immigrants,” he said. “The way that
families cannot be united is a problem as well as the way people have
been criminalized and end up in jail.”

Aubrey Valencia, 32, of Aurora walked with her daughter, Jasmine, 6, to join the march.

“This
is how she gets an education,” said Valencia, who held her daughter
home from school to march. “The goal is to teach history as it happens,
about the democratic process, about social justice.”

An older man
watching the march commented, “I don’t know how someone could stay home
and watch Dr. Phil with all this going on, but they do.”