[Marxism] 75,000 March in Ft Myers, Florida for Immigrant Rights

["Michael Hoover" <hooverm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Orlando Sentinel 
Marchers descend on Fort Myers to protest House bill
>From Wire and Staff Reports
April 11, 2006

As many as 75,000 demonstrators marched Monday on Fort Myers in one of the 
nation's largest protests for immigrant rights.

The protest grew from a gathering that initially drew a few thousand but 
burgeoned as the day went on. By 2:30 p.m., the crowd had grown to 10,000.

By evening, the Naples Daily News and The News-Press of Fort Myers reported, 
the Lee County Sheriff's Office estimated that the crowd swelled to 75,000 -- 
by far the largest demonstration in Florida during Monday's nationwide day of 
protests.

Many of those who converged on Fort Myers came from the town of Immokalee, a 
farming community in rural eastern Collier County. They traveled in vehicles 
normally used to take them to work in the fields.

Veronica Ramirez, 19, a native of Mexico City, was one of hundreds who came 
from Immokalee. She said she had participated in marches before but never one 
so big.

"It gives you motivation to keep fighting," said Ramirez, who has worked in the 
tomato fields since she came to the United States two years ago.

Ramirez said she is still very worried that even if an immigration-reform bill 
was passed allowing immigrants who have been in the country at least five years 
to legalize their status, she will still be illegal.

"I have been working hard, as hard as people who have been here five years," 
Ramirez said.

Other protests in Florida were small by comparison: A rally in Lake Worth drew 
about 5,000; about 2,500 turned out in Homestead; and about 1,500 in DeLand.

Florida, home to as many as 880,000 illegal immigrants, had kept a low profile 
in the controversial debate, which has seen hundreds of thousands of people 
take to the streets in California and Texas. That started to change during the 
weekend, with protests drawing thousands in Orlando and Miami -- but nowhere 
near the size that converged Monday on Fort Myers.

A group largely made up of Mexican immigrants gathered in front of the Volusia 
County Courthouse on Monday afternoon.

They waved U.S. and Mexican flags and chanted in English and Spanish -- holding 
signs with statements such as "La solucion es la legalizacion," or 
"Legalization is the solution," and "Stop the ignorance, we are not criminals."

"Power is in numbers," Marcos Crisanto, a farmworkers activist, told the 
cheering crowd.

It was part of a coordinated effort across the nation that brought as many as 
500,000 protesters to Washington, D.C., chanting "Si, se puede" -- "Yes, we 
can" -- and carrying signs declaring, "We are America."

Organizers of the march on the National Mall tabbed attendance at a 
half-million; police would give no official estimate. Protests in Atlanta and 
Phoenix drew an estimated 50,000 each, while a New York City march drew 20,000.

The protests came after partisan disagreements in the Senate on Friday left in 
doubt the future of a compromise bill that could provide U.S. citizenship for 
millions of illegal immigrants.

The House bill, passed in December, would make being an illegal immigrant a 
felony, make it a crime to help them and called for building a fence along the 
nation's border with Mexico.

There are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

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