Vol. 73/No. 19      May 18, 2009

Some 2,500 marched in Seattle; 2,000 in Salem, Oregon; and 1,500 in Portland, Oregon, reports Edwin Fruit. There were contingents from the United Food and Commercial Workers, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Service Employees International Union, UNITE-HERE, and the Portland Restaurant Workers Association.

Some 250 people turned out in Bellingham, Washington, the site of the first factory raid by immigration cops under the Obama administration. One of the workers arrested in that raid at the Yamato engine plant addressed the rally. The United Farm Workers (UFW) and Western Washington University students both had contingents.

About 500 people marched in Yakima, Washington. The Chicano rights student organization MEChA from Yakima Community College; UFW; and Maestros Unidos, a teachers group in the American Federation of Teachers, organized contingents. Fruit reports that 40 counterdemonstrators from the anti-immigrant and rightist Minuteman outfit showed up, some wearing masks blaming Mexican workers for the spread of the swine flu virus.

The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns had a large banner at the New York City action demanding “Legalization for all” that attracted workers from many different countries.

Some 150 people marched in Hempstead, New York. The Hempstead police have stepped up harassment of day laborers when they stand in the Home Depot parking lot waiting to get hired. “There’s one cop who drives so close to us he almost runs over our feet,” said Julio, who is from Honduras and asked that his last name not be used.

Neither he nor Ricardo, born in El Salvador, like Obama’s plan to make immigrant workers pay a heavy fine as a step toward gaining legalization. They point out that the cops won’t let them work.

Six hundred workers and others marched in Greeley, Colorado, where immigration cops raided the Swift meatpacking plant in 2006, arresting hundreds of workers. Horace Kerr reports that “despite calls for a countermobilization by former Colorado State representative Tom Tancredo, and the Minuteman Web site, ‘contras’ were limited to eight in number.”

A contingent of Black construction workers joined the May Day march in Newark, New Jersey. The majority of the 300 marchers were Latino day laborers from northern and central New Jersey, writes Mike Fitzsimmons.

In Toronto, more than 800 rallied May 2 to demand the Canadian government stop deportations of immigrants and grant legal status to all, reports Annette Kouri. On April 2 and 3 the Canada Border Services Agency jailed more than 100 people for alleged immigration violations.
 
 
Related articles:
Chicago May 1 rally demands legalization
‘Immigrant rights central issue for labor’
Socialist Workers candidates speak at U.S. May Day rallies
Phoenix march protests anti-immigrant sheriff
Many students join California May 1 marches
Los Angeles: ‘We need legalization, employment’
Caribbean workers march May 1 for jobs, pay raise  
 
 
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