Carrying signs and demanding an end to ICE raids, hundreds of protesters descended on downtown Los Angeles Saturday for a march in support of immigrant rights.
Jessica Ortiz, 37, of Riverside, says she is supporting sanctuary for undocumented immigrants because “my parents migrated here. I’ve seen them work hard and make their way up. This is my way of laying back and contributing to their cause.”
Ortiz is a government employee who works in the welfare office and says “I know for a fact that illegal immigrants aren’t on welfare. They don’t qualify for benefits.”
“It bothers me that part of the argument against immigrants is that they’re taking our resources … but they really aren’t.”
By bus, by car and by Metro, people from across Southern California traveled to Pershing Square for what organizers billed as the ‘Free the People’ immigration march.
The gathering began at 11 a.m. and was organized in protest of President Donald Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
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Shortly after taking office, Trump moved forward on his campaign promises by signing two sweeping executive orders on immigration, which called for building a border wall, punishing sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants and banning entry into the U.S. of people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Protest organizers called Trump’s actions “vicious attacks” on immigrants.
“Since Trump’s inauguration, our communities have been met with the exacerbation of raids, Muslim bans, hate crimes and criminalization,” organizers wrote on the event’s Facebook page. Saturday’s march followed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation earlier this month that resulted in 161 arrests in six Southern California counties.
The arrests were part of a nationwide effort to deport criminals who are in the country illegally. Immigration activists have said the sweeps were part of the Trump administration’s hard-line stance on undocumented immigrants, though ICE officials denied it.
On Monday, protesters are expected to take part in another anti-Trump march called the “Not My President’s Day” rally.
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