Utahns speak out for migrant rights

Ruby Garcia, 18, wants the world to know she's Latina, she's a citizen and she can vote.

She was among hundreds of mostly Latino students who walked out of school Tuesday morning and took to the Salt Lake Valley streets in a show of support for immigration rights.

"We're here for our people," said Garcia, a Granger High student who walked from West Valley City to the City-County Building in Salt Lake City.

The students stayed for an afternoon rally organized by ACELA, HONDURAS MAYA and the Latin-America Chamber of Commerce, which called for immigration reform that would legalize undocumented immigrants.

The rally, coinciding with others nationwide, drew about 2,000 — fewer than a similar rally and march last year at Liberty Park, which took place the same day hundreds of undocumented workers stayed home from their jobs as part of a one-day national boycott.

Also last year, at least 25,000 people marched to the state Capitol in April, and hundreds of high school and junior high students participated in walkouts for nearly a week.

Nationwide, Tuesday's demonstrations drew only a fraction of the million-plus protesters who turned out last year. In Los Angeles, for example, 25,000 turned out, compared to several hundred thousand last year. In Chicago, the estimates were at 150,000, compared to 400,000 last year.

Organizers of Salt Lake's rally said the lower turnout was largely due to fear in the wake of last December's highly publicized arrest of 145 undocumented immigrants at a Hyrum meat-packing plant as part of a nationwide immigration enforcement operation.

"Our community is afraid, it's really afraid right now," said Jorge Angel, founder of ACELA.

Still, Angel hoped the rally, in which U.S. citizens joined non-citizen immigrants — legal and illegal alike — in a call for Congress to act, would have an impact. Organizers were collecting signatures for a petition to Congress and registering citizens to vote. Angel said he was optimistic, despite Congress' inaction on immigration after last year's marches and rallies.

"You never win with one battle," he said. "That's the main thing, you've got to be consistent. ... We need to prove we are here as legal residents, and we are here as U.S. citizens."

Protests were mostly peaceful, except for an evening rally at a park in Los Angeles, where some suspected of throwing rocks and bottles at police were arrested. Police fired rubber bullets and used batons to push the crowd onto the sidewalk.