Marchers protest suburbs' immigration initiative

Marchers protest suburbs' immigration initiative
By Dan Simmons
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
May 22, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northnorthwest/ct-met-mchenry-immigration-march-052220100522,0,2545131.story


After a quick dinner of cold cuts and pasta salad, about 40 marchers headed into a driving rain Friday for the next leg of their three-day trek to McHenry County to protest what they say is a crackdown on immigrants.

"We don't have time to slow down," said Jessica Palys, a spokesman for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights as the marchers faced a 6-mile hike to a church in Arlington Heights, where they planned to sleep. By then, they had traveled 12 miles, from St. Bartholomew Church in Chicago's Portage Park neighborhood.

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The group organized the march from Chicago to the McHenry County jail in Woodstock to protest a new initiative in Chicago's suburbs, which they say resembles a controversial Arizona law that gives local police more power to enforce federal immigration laws.

The coalition chose the jail as the destination of their 50-mile journey because it's a federal detention center that usually has about 400 inmates held on immigration-related charges, Palys said.

The marchers ranged in age from late teens to early 70s. Maggie Rivera, of Crystal Lake, said laws aimed at immigrants often don't make sense.

"Do we want our police officers to serve and protect, or do we want them looking for undocumented workers?" she said. "These are people here in this country looking for a better life."

The marchers ate dinner at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines. Many carried backpacks and sleeping bags. After saying prayers in Spanish and English, they slipped on their ponchos and started walking in the rain to St. James Catholic Church in Arlington Heights, where they would spend the night in the gym.

On Saturday, they plan to hike to Cary, then finish their journey on Sunday at the jail.

The marchers said they object to the recent adoption by McHenry County of the Secure Communities initiative, which gives police and sheriff's departments access to a Homeland Security database that includes fingerprints. The initiative recently grew to include most of Chicago's suburbs.

Palys criticized the initiative, saying it punished hard-working immigrants who pose little or no criminal risk.

John Morton, who heads U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a visit to Chicago on Wednesday that his agency intended to step up enforcement of the initiative in places such as Illinois.

Morton said enforcement efforts would result in a "sharp increase" in deportations.

Last year's 400,000 overall deportations were a record; this year has seena 40 percent jump in deportations of criminals, he said.

dtsimmons@tribune.com