Several thousand people rallied and marched in Austin today in support of immigrant rights and to protest enforcement-only legislation that has passed the House of Representatives. I was a participant-lite, not because I don't believe in the message, but because I had real immigrants to help for the clinic.I was a little reluctant to walk out of Federal Courts at 11:11 this morning because the prof was on a rare interesting and coherent streak. I opted not to march down to the Capitol with the other UT students for the student rally and instead went to my second class and then did work in the clinic.
Around 4, I went to the Capitol for the pre-march rally. I was glad to see that the rally/protest remained pretty much on message, which was to show support for comprehensive immigration reform. The other message was to protest draconian House legislation that would, among other ill-advised provisions, make people like me criminals because we provide assistance to both legal and illegal immigrants.* Also, the organizers did a good job seeing that most people were waving American flags, although there were also a lot of Mexican and some Honduran, Guatemalan, and Peruvian flags. I opted out of the march through downtown Austin because I had to meet with a client, a meeting that if this legislation were to become law would subject me to a fine and imprisonment of up to five years.
*H.R. 4337, sec. 202. You can read this provision and the rest of the bill at thomas.loc.gov.
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