Hundreds rally in Salt Lake to protest Arizona law

SALT LAKE CITY — As an undocumented immigrant, 27-year-old Luz Mariscal worries constantly: She's barely scraping by working part-time at a fast-food joint — the only job she could find without producing papers. If her employer discovers she entered the country illegally, she'll be fired, she said. What will happen to her two children, who are American citizens, if she is deported to Mexico?

"Immigration laws need to be reformed," said Mariscal, who, with her hair in pigtails and a sprinkling of innocent freckles across her nose, looks too young to be a mother. "We aren't criminals; we are a family. All we want is to be a family, unafraid."

Mariscal was one of several hundred people who gathered Saturday at the Centro Civico Mexicano in Salt Lake City to support immigration reform and protest a new Arizona law that requires immigrants to produce paperwork or do jail time.

The rally was the second of two nationwide campaigns calling for change in United States immigration policy. Thousands of protesters in dozens of cities across the country flooded the streets crying, "Si se puede," "Yes we can."

At the Centro Civico Mexicano, 155 S. 600 West, protesters addressed the crowd from a stage set up among shipped-in carnival rides and portable taco stands. Ruben Soriano, vice president of Centro Civico Mexicano, called the day — which, for many across the city, was also a celebration of Mexico's unlikely 1862 victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla — "the start of a new battle."

"Today we fight for liberation," Soriano said. "Today we fight for civil rights."

Arizona's law, which enables police to request identification if they suspect a person is in the country illegally, is "unconstitutional" and "racist," said Tony Yapias of Proyecto Latino de Utah.

In the crowd, people held signs reading "End racism through unity" and "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"It's not only about the undocumented," Yapias said. "It's about all of us. It doesn't matter where we were born. Because of our faces, because we look like immigrants, they can detain us until we prove we are citizens."

Bishop John Wester of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City said fighting laws like SB1070 is not an issue of politics, but an issue of morals.

"It is not so much human beings breaking the law, as it is the law breaking human beings," he said.

Laws need to be changed to "work for the people," he said. He suggested reform include an earned pattern of citizenship, more work visas and provisions to keep families together.

He and subsequent speakers, which included Sen. Luz Robles, D-West Valley, and Archie Archuleta, president of the Hispanic Association of Utah, called on the crowd to "end ignorance" by working together to educate society about how immigrants strengthen America's economy, society and culture.

"I pay taxes every month," said Mariscal, herding her two children, who carried American flags, through the crowds at the rally. "I am a member of this community. Doesn't that mean something?"

e-mail: estuart@desnews.com