BY GREG ROSENBERG

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Activists building the October 12 march on Washington for Latino and immigrant rights report that knowledge of the demonstration is spreading among working people and student youth in cities around the country. As buses and vans begin to fill for the trip, a number of those making plans to attend are also hearing of the march independently of the efforts of local coalitions.

Interest in the demonstration is being fueled by the sharp curbs instituted by the Clinton administration and Congress violating the basic rights of those born outside U.S. borders. The bipartisan piece of anti-immigrant legislation signed by Congress on September 30 nearly doubles the number of INS border cops for the next five years; adds 600 new agents to crack down against "criminal" aliens and visitors who overstay their U.S. visas.

The bill also authorizes $12 million for a border fence; raises the maximum penalty for document fraud from five years to 15 years; requires sponsors of immigrant relatives to earn at least 125 percent of the federal poverty level; and streamlines procedures for deporting those who arrive with inadequate documents, including asylum seekers.

These measures come in the context of expanded raids by INS cops across the country. In addition, new light is being shed on the contents of the welfare bill signed earlier this year by Clinton. The September 30 Los Angeles Times reported that provisions buried in the new law may require public employees to report suspected undocumented immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

Workers without legal papers who are currently denied driving permits, for example, or public assistance, are not turned in to INS cops. But California governor Peter Wilson's office, offering its interpretation of the new legislation, says states will now be required to tell the INS about anyone known to be in the country without papers.

Warm response from poultry workers
A team of activists from the Philadelphia coalition traveled to Georgetown, Delaware, September 29 to build the march on Washington. They got a warm response from workers in that town, one of a string of communities where thousands of workers from Mexico and Guatemala process poultry at heavily-speeded up rates. INS agents raided nearby towns in Maryland in August, arresting 124.

The team stopped by the Church of San Miguel, where they were invited by the priest to address the Spanish-speaking congregation after the noon mass. The activists supporting the demonstration were given an ovation by more than 200 people present. A nun then announced that the church would organize buses to Washington for the march.

"No human being is illegal," pointed out a high school student volunteering in the national march office here in Washington. Four Latino students and a teacher from Bell High School in Washington, D.C. attended the last coalition meeting held here to build the demonstration, as did students from George Washington University and Georgetown.

In the past week, 15,000 flyers in Spanish and English have been produced here to build the demonstration. Leafleting teams have met with a warm response, from a Latino festival in Langley Park, Maryland, to a picket line in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle outside the Israeli embassy.

March builds in Midwest
Activists in Chicago report that the call for the protest has garnered significant interest in the Latino community and on college campuses. Students at De Paul University report that 100 people have signed up to go, and activists at Northern Illinois University say a similar number from that school are planning to make the trip, organizing travel in university vans. Some 20 students from Chicago's Whitney Young high school plan to attend the demonstration.

Seventy people gathered at St. Stephens school in Minneapolis September 28 to protest attacks on immigrants and build October 12. They heard from Maria Teresa Tula, who had been imprisoned for political activity in her native El Salvador. "I want to ask you that we unite in one voice," Tula said. "Many bills are being passed against immigrants. That's why it's important that we go to the march on October 12 and say presente. We know that we're fighting for our fights, just like we did in our countries."

Federal authorities, who had been stalling on issuing permits, have finally granted them for the assembly and rally points. Washington, D.C. police have still not issued a permit for the march route.

The demonstration will assemble at 9 a.m. at Meridian Hill Park (popularly known as Malcolm X park), located at 16th and Euclid Streets Northwest. The march will proceed to the Ellipse, immediately south of the White House, for a rally.

October 12-13 promises to be a busy weekend of protest and political activity in the capital. Latino students are planning a conference at Georgetown University on Sunday, October 13, which will be preceded by a cultural event on Saturday evening.

Mark Curtis in Chicago, Verónica Poses in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Pete Seidman in Philadelphia contributed to this article.  
 
 
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