"The passage of H.R. 4437 has unleashed an unprecedented movement in favor of immigrant justice and against reactionary proposals that would worsen America’s already broken immigration system," said Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director for Center for Community Change, "Immigrant communities and allies will not be satisfied with any legislation that violates our principles for fair immigration reform."

The slogan "Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote" was heard across the nation as the grassroots immigrant movement demanded reforms to help speed up the legalization process, reunite families, and rights to higher education. They were also present to demand workers rights. Undocumented immigrants account for about 4.9% of the civilian labor force, or 7.2 million workers out of a total U.S. labor force of 148 million.

"We are looking for better conditions to work, justice in the job, and legalization," said Tania Martanti, a woman carrying a sign for a 27-year-old Brazilian construction worker who died after a scaffolding fell thirteen stories in Boston last week. "These guys are building America too, you know?"

Critics of immigration reform say that undocumented immigrants cost the US government millions in social services and do not pay taxes. In reality, the vast majority of the six to seven billion dollars in unclaimed social security is attributable to undocumented workers, according to Standard & Poor’s, a research and risk analysis company.

"Thanks to this mobilization we are no longer invisible," said Luis Fernando Velez from an 18,000-member, mostly Latino Boston local of Service Employees International Union (SEIU). "We are here to tell politicians that many of us are ready to vote, but they have to be ready to support the interests of the working class." Velez said that much of their efforts are currently focused on the Justice for Janitors national living wage campaign.

In their 2004 Latino Labor Report, the Pew Hispanic Center found that recently arrived Hispanic immigrants were a leading source of new workers to the economy but also among the principal recipients of wage cuts in 2004. The concentration of Latinos in relatively low-skill occupations contributed to reduced earnings for them for the second year in a row.

That would explain the significant presence of labor unions at the march today, including Hotel Union Workers, United Steel Workers of America, Local 8771, and Boston School Bus Drivers. Many are joining forces to participate in a national strike on May 1st since they consider immigrant rights to be a labor rights issue.

"This is not only about people who are doing low-income jobs, it’s about people who have gone to college and have their degrees," said Raymond Brady, an Irish immigrant who finds much in common between Latino workers today and the first Irish workers who arrived in New York. He also said that immigrants nowadays come from many different economic backgrounds.

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