US: Over a million protest against anti-immigrant legislation

The unprecedented wave of immigrants' rights protests sweeping the United States reached a new high yesterday as an estimated two million people took to the streets in 140 different cities around the country ­ an extraordinary mobilisation many supporters are likening to a second civil rights movement.

The National Day of Action took many forms including a consumer boycott by immigrants and labour stoppages. Probably the biggest demonstration took place along the National Mall in Washington where many tens of thousands gathered on a brilliant spring afternoon to listen to speeches urging unity and proclaiming the Hispanic community's love of its adopted nation. Thousands were waving flags. Some were of Latin American countries, but the overwhelming majority waved the Stars and Stripes.

"They want to have a law to make all us criminals," said Celerino Lopez, a construction worker from Oaxaca, Mexico. He and his wife crossed the desert to enter the US illegally nine years ago. He said there were no jobs or opportunities at home.

"We come here to work, we are not terrorists. I want my child to learn English and to get a job," he said.

The demonstration took place just yards from the Capitol, where Senators last week failed to reach agreement on wide-ranging immigration reform that might have offered a way for the nation's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants to achieve legal recognition and greater security.

Politicians from both major parties have been blindsided by the protests, whose size and passion caught everyone off guard. Two weeks ago, Los Angeles saw the biggest protest in its history as half a million people took to the streets. On Sunday, up to half a million marched through the centre of Dallas, while smaller protests rocked such unlikely outposts of immigrant activism as Des Moines, Iowa, and Boise, Idaho.

The immigrants have reacted first and foremost to draconian legislation proposed by radical Republicans in the House of Representatives to criminalise anyone in the country without proper residency papers and to build a military fence along 700 miles of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border.

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