LOS ANGELES - Hundreds of Mexican and "Central American"-descent children marched through downtown Los Angeles Sunday afternoon to protest "racist immigration laws and racist deportations." The children and their families marched approximately four blocks, from Olvera Street to City Hall.

The children -- the vast majority who are U.S. citizens due to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution -- wore white t-shirts with the message "Legalize My Parents."

They carried signs declaring "We Are Not Illegals!", "Legalization...No Deportation" and "Keep Families Together".

Many children carried signs saying "Don't take my parents away from me!"

The marchers arrived at City Hall whereupon several speakers demanded that children not be torn apart from their families through racist deportation tactics.

One speaker read aloud the United Nations Declaration of Children's Rights, emphasizing that all children have the right to be with their parents.

Marcos Aguilar, principal of the besieged Semillas del Pueblo Academy, delivered a fiery, rousing speech to the crowd. "Somos Indigenas!" (We are Indigenous) he boldly declared on the steps of City Hall. He declared the land to be "Cemanahuac" and that it was wrong for Indigenous children to be separated from their parents because of deportations.

The march served as a warm up for the upcoming May 1 "Immigration Rights" marches and let the media see the child victims of U.S. immigration laws and deportations.


Several groups were represented, such as Hermandad Mexicana, March 25th Coalition, and Semillas del Pueblo.


See video of the march (by Mexica Movement):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqR_aZQC1mA
or
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMexicaMovement

Photos below were taken by Mexica Movement members.


** More information on the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Dear Bob,

It's a shame you have to be so Politically Correct. You say "illegals" when you really mean to say MEXICANS.

You don't mean Chinese or Canadian illegals & visa overstayers. You mean Mexicans.

"That's because Mexicans are 99% of The Problem!" you will say.

If that's the case...then drop the Political Correctness and say what you really mean = "Deport Mexicans" and "It's a Mexican Problem."

And after you drop your PC mask (an unconvincing one at that), we can discuss how illegal immigration began in 1492 with the illegal trespassing of Europeans into this hemisphere.

That's the proper context for the discussion on illegal and unwanted immigration.

No one wants to separate families except the activists who don't want the children to rejoin their families in Mexico.

Normal adults do not burden children with their problems, meaning worrying them and marches.
Illegal parents with citizen born children: What is best for the child? The answer is clearly to KEEP your children with you if you are deported, this is humane and loving treatment of your children. So if you have to go they go to. The Gonzales boy is an example; his mother took him away from his father who it's important to note was a good father and risked the boy's life. Lucily he was sent back to be with his father, not in Dafur where a child could starve, but to Cuba where he is happy with father and family left.
As his father stated, "America has too many dangers such as drugs and gangs, guns, etc. etc."

From a humanitarian perspective, our fellow human beings, who migrate to support their families, continue to suffer at the hands of immigration policies that separate them from family members and drive them into remote parts of the American desert, sometimes to their deaths. This suffering should not continue.

Now is the time to address this pressing humanitarian issue which affects so many lives and undermines basic human dignity. Our society should no longer tolerate a status quo that perpetuates a permanent underclass of persons and benefits from their labor without offering them legal protections.

From a humanitarian perspective, our fellow human beings, who migrate to support their families, continue to suffer at the hands of immigration policies that separate them from family members and drive them into remote parts of the American desert, sometimes to their deaths. This suffering should not continue.

Now is the time to address this pressing humanitarian issue which affects so many lives and undermines basic human dignity. Our society should no longer tolerate a status quo that perpetuates a permanent underclass of persons and benefits from their labor without offering them legal protections.