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Protesters March From Pershing Square To City Hall In Support Of Immigration Rights

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Immigration Ban Protesters At LAX (Photo by David McNew/Getty)

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A crowd gathered in the intersection of Hill and 5th Streets in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday morning to march for immigrants rights. The Free The People Immigrantion March took place two days after the A Day Without Immigrants strike.

According to the March's Facebook page, one of the event's expressed purposes is to "Enact strong sanctuary policies that prevent local tax dollars and resources (including law enforcement) from being used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There will be no subsidizing Trump's deportation machine."

“We want the city and the county to not just declare Los Angeles a sanctuary city — which they have not — but to take these strong, concrete policies,” David Abud, an organizer of the march, who also works with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said, notes the Los Angeles Times.

As of Saturday morning, the Facebook page listed 64,000 people interested in the march, and 21,000 people as "Going", yet, by 11:00 a.m., no more than a couple thousand people were in attendance.

Jessica Ortiz, one of the marchers, told Los Angeles Daily News that she was marching 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. ...It bothers me that part of the argument against immigrants is that they’re taking our resources ... but they really aren’t.”

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