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Massive Immigration March Planned For Saturday
The crowd at the January 21 Women's March at Pershing Square (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty)
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Additional reporting by Yazmin Nunez
The Trump administration has only been in office three weeks, yet relations with Mexico and Canada are growing increasingly strained, an executive order (since ruled null by a federal judge) was enacted to ban refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, a threat to cut federal funding to so-called "sanctuary cities" was issued, and construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is moving closer to reality with each passing day.
What's more, large-scale ICE raids (both in Los Angeles and nationwide) have flamed the twin fires of stress and panic among immigrants living in the United States.
To this end, a march for the rights and protection of immigrants has been organized for Saturday in downtown Los Angeles. The Free The People Immigration March is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at Pershing Square.
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"We invite everyone to join us as we unite around those being attacked," the event's Facebook page states. "We stand with and elevate the voices of the undocumented, Black, Brown, trans, queer, Muslim communities who are leading the way in the resistance."
So far, about 20,000 people have said they will attend the march, according to the Facebook page, and 62,000 are listed as interested.
"The action: Take the streets," organizers of the march added on the Facebook page. "Come hear from community members who have been directly impacted by Trump's attacks! We will also discuss the next steps in our efforts to organize our communities to defend themselves from the increasing attacks." A list of speakers at the event has not yet been released.
Scattered showers are expected, so you might want to bring an umbrella. Here's a handy guide on how to prepare for the march, how to stay safe, and what to bring.
LAist spoke with Joseph Brown, one of the event's organizers. A partial transcript of the conversation is below.
Can you tell me how you got involved?
After the Women’s March we felt the people who needed to be represented were not.
What message do you guys hope to send?
The message will be to organize. We just want to showcase the organizations that are out there and we just want people to know that there are resources out there. They can go and learn about their rights, learn about how they can defend themselves and their communities.
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Why is it important to have this march?
The name of the march was Immigrants Make America Great and this was thought [up] by Isaac Price. We spoke to the organization, the organization didn’t like it. We voted to change the name. The point is to highlight this is something that has been going on for a long time. This is not just something because Trump got elected. Once people are being detained they don’t have any rights while they are being detained. We are going to try to unite as many immigrants from all over the place. We are trying to translate the message and the title in as many languages as we can.
I saw that there is a Go Fund Me page for the march—the goal is $10,000, and there is just over $4,400 raised?
Yes. I think, so far, we are going to be okay. We want the sound to be impactful. As long as the message is clear, we should be good. We want to print out a lot of the Know Your Rights fliers.
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