Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

New York immigrants take to Brooklyn Bridge in protest of H.R. 4437
By Anna Phillips
Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia U.)
04/03/2006

(U-WIRE) NEW YORK — On Saturday morning thousands of New Yorkers — some longtime residents, others recent immigrants — marched across the Brooklyn Bridge in protest of an immigration bill currently being considered by Congress.

The passage of H.R. 4437 by the House has elicited a series of protests throughout the country. Saturday's protest, estimated at 40,000 people, brought together around 200 minority-interest groups and city politicians such as U.S. Rep. Anthony D. Weiner (D-N.Y.) and State Sen. Rev. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx, N.Y.).

If passed by the U.S. Senate, the bill, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.), would make it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant. But its main point of contention is that it broadens the definition of "alien smuggling" to include aid knowingly given to undocumented immigrants. This could punish charitable acts by private organizations, contributing to the large presence of Hispanic and immigrant church groups at the protest.

It would also make hiring undocumented workers illegal. Frank Garcia, president of the New York State Wide Coalition of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, owns a small business and employs several workers who are in the process of obtaining legal residency.

"I'm very angry at the Republicans for doing this," Garcia said. "They should be more sensitive to us. Corporate America wants to do business with minority companies, but if we don't have the people to help us, how are we going to do it?"

Although some came as members of unions or church groups, most marchers made the day a family affair, bringing their children in strollers and wearing the colors of their country's flags, or the flags themselves. The reds and greens of Mexico swayed alongside the blues of Venezuela, but for every foreign flag in the air there seemed to be an American flag, and many marchers waved both.

"People believe, after 9/11, that [immigrants] are terrorists, and we're not," Flor Maria Fells, a Colombian immigrant, said. Twenty years ago she hired a coyote — someone who smuggles immigrants into the United States-and swam across the Rio Grande to start over in America.

"We come here to work, to change our lives, we do jobs that people don't want to do," Fells said. "I go to Colombia and I don't feel like it's my country anymore. When I come to New York, I feel like this is my home."

In defending their presence in the country, many protesters cited the importance of immigrant workers to the national economy.

"This country has been founded on the work and labor and exploitation and abuse of immigrants, and it is an immigrant country," said Michelle Matos of the Fifth Avenue Committee.

The march culminated in Foley Square, where protesters gathered around a small stage and listened as leaders of Hispanic, Chinese, African, and Jamaican groups announced the possibility of a strike by immigrant workers to protest the bill.

Like many, Vanessa Mosquera, a 20-year-old from Colombia, agreed with the idea of a strike. "We should show them how much they need immigrants here," she said.

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