Corporate media’s accounts of the Watsonville May Day march

Marchers unite against raids
Posted: Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
BY: AMANDA SCHOENBERG

As he stood next to a handwritten sign proclaiming “we are not terrorists,” Jesus Rodriguez said immigration raids in Watsonville, Hollister and Santa Cruz in September frightened many locals into staying home and keeping their children out of school.

“They make you feel like a terrorist and at the same time, they make you feel terror,” he said.

Rodriguez, along with his wife and three children, joined about 2,000 people in a peaceful afternoon march through the streets of Watsonville and Pajaro Tuesday to protest raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

“It is a very difficult life there (in Mexico), that’s why we’re here,” he said, holding up a United States flag. “We work hard, we pay taxes. Look, here is my flag.”

The group of multi-generational protesters, which gathered steam as it headed toward Pajaro, began and ended in the Watsonville Plaza. Many chanted “Si se puede” and waved signs that read, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us,” and “Migra out of Watsonville.” One boy toward the front of the group carried a green sign that said, “Don’t take away my parents.”

Unlike last year’s well-publicized “Day without an Immigrant” mass demonstrations focusing on immigration reform, this year’s march rallied against the “Return to Sender” campaign that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials began last year to target undocumented immigration with deportation orders. During the September campaign in Santa Cruz, Hollister and Watsonville, ICE officials rounded up 107 people.

“We’re coming together to say, ‘Stop the immigration raids,’” said Ramiro Medrano, a member of organizing group MigraWatch. “No human being is illegal.”

As marchers passed through town, Mayor Manuel Bersámin said he was finalizing the City Council agenda for Tuesday — which will include what he expects will be a hotly debated resolution of “non-cooperation” with further ICE raids. The resolution is a revamped version of a 1996 resolution already on the books, Bersámin said.

The Santa Cruz City Council also took a recent stand against the raids, passing a resolution last month that prohibits using city funds to help ICE immigration enforcement.

As families gathered in the plaza, Medrano told the crowd to fill the Watsonville City Council chambers Tuesday. “We have to tell them to pass the resolution,” he said.

Watsonville resident Adela Mendez held aloft a sign that read “Don’t separate families” in Spanish. She said she suspected that fewer people turned out for the march this year out of fear of repercussion.

“Thank God we are all legal, but we have friends and cousins that aren’t,” she said. “This affects everyone.”

Five Watsonville police officers on motorcycles and several California Highway Patrol and Monterey County Sheriff’s patrol cars monitored traffic during the march. Watsonville police Capt. Manny Solano said he expected a peaceful event, adding that protesters had paid for permits and insurance and kept to one side of the street.