The cost of Immigration

As many as 60,000 immigrants and their supporters joined a peaceful but boisterous march through downtown Los Angeles to City Hall, waving American flags, tooting horns and holding signs that blasted the Arizona law. The legislation, which is set to take effect in midsummer, makes it a crime to be in Arizona without legal status and requires police to check for immigration papers.Though the crowd was roughly half as large as police had projected, it was the largest May Day turnout since 2006, when anger over federal legislation that would have criminalized illegal immigrants and those who aid them brought out more than 1 million protesters nationwide. Since then, most activists have deemphasized street actions in favor of change at the ballot box through promoting citizenship and voter registration.But this year is different. Outrage over the Arizona law, continued deportations and frustration over congressional delay in passing federal immigration reform prompted activists nationwide to urge massive street protests on this traditional day of celebrating workers' rights
What is to say over the discrimination of people of all cultural backgrounds? Are we not all immigrants anyway? That is what this discussion boils down to, whether you may be illegal or not, at one point in this nation’s history a family member immigrated into the US from various countries and thus began this great nation of Freedom. Or should I be so bold to say RESTRICTIONS, for it seem as if no one these days can truly have freedom. One is not to exclude the affluent in this topic as well, for even they are constrained by obligations to contribute to the greater well being of our society. We as a FREE nation must invoke change, but the change must first come from our own being.
Victoria Vergara, a 53-year-old Mexico native and U.S. resident for 27 years, stood with a group of workers from the Westin Bonaventure and other hotels. Her brother, an illegal immigrant who runs a used-car business in Chicago, is afraid U.S. authorities will shut down his business and deport him after more than two decades here, she said."I was lucky. I was able to get amnesty in the 1986 law and now I'm an American citizen," she said. "We want President Obama to know that it's time to help these hard-working people who don't have papers, who have worked hard all their lives in this country and want to be good Americans."The marchers also included African American union members, Korean drummers dressed in colorful traditional garb and even a white educator hoisting a sign that read "Gringos for Immigrants' Rights."One illegal immigrant from South Korea, who asked to be identified by his first name, Jeff, said he came to protest the "broken-down immigration system.""This does not just affect Latinos," said Jeff, wearing a white shirt that crossed out the word "minutemen." "This affects all communities."In the hot seat of Arizona, rallies in Tucson and Phoenix drew hundreds of protesters.In Tucson, organizers released a flock of doves and hundreds of white balloons, and Aztec dancers performed. Rally speakers included labor organizer Dolores Huerta and singer Linda Ronstadt.Rep. Raul Grijalva, the Arizona congressman who has called for an economic boycott of the state, was received with boisterous cheers. "We are going to fight this law," he told the crowd.A couple of dozen counter-protesters carried signs that read "Deport Illegal Mexicans," "Remember the Alamo, Mexico," "Boycott Mexico" and "Mexico Out of US."Claudia White, 56, a Tucson resident and naturalized Mexican immigrant who organized the counter-protest, said she supported the Arizona law because she worried about the consequences of what she called "open-border policies." Recent immigrants, she said, show "less of an interest in how this country was originally set up — where everybody is an individual and doesn't identify as part of a group or a block or a race."In Phoenix, where many activists were too exhausted by the fight against the bill to plan a unified event, a few thousand people poured onto the broad lawn in front of the state Capitol for what became a sort of daylong festival against SB 1070.Vendors sold ices and mangoes, anarchists handed out literature about the right of indigenous people to travel freely, and families wheeled strollers carrying toddlers who chanted "Si se puede!"A handful of people supporting the law trickled in during the day and often had to leave under police escort after being surrounded by agitated demonstrators.Amelia Sally, a 35-year-old customer service representative, held a sign that read: "Got Your Papers? If So ... Welcome." She was disheartened at the way demonstrators around the country were bashing her state.