Downtown march spotlights immigrants, workers rights

The passionate debate over immigration and workers rights has dropped a few degrees from past years, but hundreds or thousands of demonstrators are expected to march through downtown Seattle during afternoon rush hour Thursday with a basic message:

"We are not undocumented. We are not illegal. We are workers." Or, as a bilingual flier for the event states in Spanish, "No somos ilegales. No somos indocumentados. Somos trabajadores."

Until the nation's broken immigration system is repaired -- a process that might take years -- the rights of workers must be protected, organizers said Monday in announcing the ninth annual march.

They complained that federal agencies, with the help of local governments, are stripping the rights of Latinos and practicing racial profiling, allegations that federal officials deny.

"Washington state needs the labor of the immigrant," said Jorge Quiroga, spokesman for El Comite Pro-Amnistia General y Justicia Social (The Committee for General Amnesty and Social Justice), the main organizers of the march.

Although "nativists" who oppose illegal immigration want all those without documents to be deported, that is not a realistic solution, said Jeff Johnson, research director of the Washington State Labor Council. Removing the estimated 12 million undocumented individuals in the U.S. would be akin to eliminating the population of the Northwest, he said.

The nation's immigration system does not allow enough immigrants to enter the country legally and makes it difficult for those who try, said the Most Rev. Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle.

The process is lengthy and expensive and "pushes people to go beneath the law," he said.

Those who risk their safety by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally "do not have other ways to respond to the needs of (their) family," Quiroga said. "We should be proud of these type of people."

What should prompt concern, organizers say, is the treatment of Latinos by immigration officials and other agencies that appear racially based.

The organizers said that Latinos riding ferries between the San Juan Islands and Anacortes have been pulled aside and checked for documents based only on their skin color.

The spokesman for the Border Patrol in Blaine could not be reached for comment.

Araceli Hernandez, program manager at CASA Latina in Seattle, said undocumented men trying to get day-labor jobs through the organization's center have been "tricked" and detained by immigration agents posing as employers.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not gone to CASA Latina and does not find undocumented people in that random manner, said Lorie Dankers, a Seattle spokeswoman for the federal agency.

Elizondo said agents also had stopped a Latina on Terry Avenue near St. James Cathedral for no reason other than race. Dankers said the incident was "probably a rumor" and did not involve her agency.

Although there is a "risk in being in the country illegally," Dankers said, "people here legally have absolutely nothing to worry about."