Students back migrants

As she marched along 800 South Thursday, 12-year-old Alicia Basto said she was tired of walking, but she wasn't about to stop.

As a native-born U.S. citizen whose parents are undocumented, Basto was among more than 200 high school and junior high school students headed toward the state Capitol to protest a proposed get-tough immigration measure.

"I've got to stand up for my parents, for my people," said Basto, a student at West Lake Junior High.

She joined other mostly Latino students for an 11-mile walk that started at West Lake and Granger High School. After about four hours of marching, many of the students ran, waving Mexican flags, as they entered the Capitol Plaza for a rally.

"We came here to live a better life," Basto said. "We want to stay here. . . . We do all the work here. Quite frankly, America needs us."

Another crowd of junior high and high school students demonstrated outside West Valley City Hall, waving flags of Mexico and the United States, cheering friendly horn-honkers and shrugging off less-friendly comments and gestures of motorists zipping past. The crowd waxed and waned over the morning hours, reaching perhaps 300 at one point, police officers said.

Student protests on Thursday were a continuation of a week of rallies at several schools in Utah and across the nation. Utah students first walked out of class Monday as the U.S. Senate debated various immigration reform proposals.

A new Pew Hispanic Center poll released Thursday indicated a growing number of Americans are concerned about immigration but are split on the overall impact and on policy proposals.

The nationwide poll of 2,000 adults found that 53 percent said those who are in the United States illegally should be required to go home, and 40 percent said they should be granted some kind of legal status. The poll, conducted Feb. 8 to March 7, found that roughly as many people think new immigrants strengthen the economy as say they threaten traditional American values.

Also Thursday, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said there has to be some way for those undocumented workers to become citizens. He and other Western governors have proposed reform that that would give those "living in the shadows" a pathway toward citizenship.

"You can't simply wish people away. I think that is unrealistic," Huntsman said during the taping of his monthly press conference on KUED Channel 7. "When you say, 'Let's simply send people back to their home,' well, where is their home?