Representing a coalition of social justice organizations in San Antonio, Austin and the Rio Grande Valley, the caravan was organized by the San Antonio-based Southwest Workers Union, which stopped in El Paso on Friday to pick up additional protesters.
Among them are members of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, Inmigrantes Unidos Sin Fronteras, Fuerza Unida and MEChA and the Dream Act Alliance, whose members are from Our Lady of the Lake University and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Lilliana Saldaña, one of several UTSA professors attending the Phoenix march, called it momentous and key to rolling back the law, the central goal of the protest.
“It's a pretty historic march,” the Mexican American Studies assistant professor said Friday en route to El Paso. “The last largest civil protest was 2006, when you really got to see a visible immigrant community. We're hoping to see the same manifestation in Arizona.”
Opponents of Senate Bill 1070, as critics refer to the law, call it racist and unconstitutional, giving police the power to stop anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. They say such legalized racial profiling unfairly targets Latinos, U.S. citizens included. The controversy has galvanized civil rights groups, spurring several legal challenges and boycotts against the state.
“We are all Arizona,” said Anayanse Garza, a leader of Southwest Workers Union in the Rio Grande Valley, who likened SB 1070 to Jim Crow-era laws. “The law is a slap in the face to everyone who has struggled for civil rights.”
According to news reports, Saturday's march was expected to attract 50,000 to 100,000 people to Indian Steel Park and then on a five-mile trek to the Arizona Capitol.
Che Lopez, a Southwest Workers Union leader, said activists hope the march puts pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to reform the nation's complex immigration laws to address the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, clearing a path toward citizenship for them.
Today's march is “also important because it's a stand against the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border,” he said.
This week, President Barack Obama authorized the use of 1,200 National Guard troops to address escalating border violence. Activists worry immigrants will get caught in the crossfire.
“Our singular purpose is to bring maximum attention to the injustices codified in 1070,” said Isabel Garcia, an attorney and Phoenix-based representative of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, one of the groups behind the march. “Our goal is to stop the entire anti-immigrant movement.”
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