Nearly 7,000 Latino immigrants and members of advocacy groups gathered last Sunday to demand the abolition of laws recently approved by the Board of Supervisors of Prince William County.
The resolution passed by the county would deny services to undocumented immigrants and speed deportations. It also may allow police officers to ask for documents of residence in cases where there is “probable cause” to believe that a person may not have legal documents to live and work in the United States.
Waving American flags, protesters demanded the law be rescinded.
“No human being is illegal,” “We are workers, not criminals,” and “Yes, we can” were among many slogans shouted by participants at the county’s headquarters in Woodbridge.
Speakers included African-Americans, Native Americans, activist from Minnesota, Indiana, Washington, D.C., Maryland and Philadelphia, and several musical performers that at some moments made the rally look more like a festival.
Franciscan Father Robert Menard, temporary administrator of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Triangle, started the event with an invocation, and Franciscan Father Joe Nangle from Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Arlington, joined participants at the march. Pastors from other denominations also joined the rally and addressed the crowd.
“I am here with my people,” said Father Nangle. “I understand their suffering because my forebears from Ireland suffered similar bigotry in Boston 100 years ago,” he said
The organizing group, Mexicans Without Borders, already coordinated a week-long economic boycott against some national chain stores hostile to immigrants in Northern Virginia. The group now is calling for a work stoppage next Oct. 9.
“Brothers and sisters, this is just the beginning of a fight for our dignity, for the opportunity to live in freedom,” said Ricardo Juárez, president of Mexicans Without Borders.  

Alfonso Aguilar can be reached at aaguilar@catholicherald.com.

(c) Copyright 2007 by Arlington Catholic Herald