On May Day in 2006, a human mass of white shirts stretched along downtown Denver’s Speer Boulevard in one of the largest mobilizations in the city’s history. An estimated 75,000 people skipped work and school to march and protest against federal legislation that would have further criminalized undocumented immigrants in the United States. Millions of others rallied in more than 25 cities.

Two years later during the Democratic National Convention, another group, estimated at 1,000, again took to the streets in Denver, demanding that immigration reform — hardly a front and center issue so far this year — isn’t forgotten when a new president takes office in January. But the event was marred with the somber memory of the past two years since the colossal May Day actions — during which immigrants in Colorado have witnessed a crackdown on the undocumented, a massive expansion of an immigrant prison, and a surge in raids and prosecutions by federal authorities.

In a state where the immigration issue directly affects the Mexican community, local activists are speaking out against what has become an increasingly hostile environment to both immigrants and those of Latino origin. Federal immigration reform is not only seen as an urgent step toward protecting undocumented families and workers in the United States but is also considered to be one of the surest ways to end a disastrous immigration legacy in Colorado.

Many who helped organize the May Day march in 2006 also took part in planning the most recent immigrant rights rally during the convention, which began at Denver’s Rude Park across from Mile High Stadium on the the last day of the convention, Aug. 28, a day that marked the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

Nita Gonzales, daughter of late Chicano activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales and president of La Escuela Tlatelolco, a community-based private school with an emphasis on Chicano and Mexican culture, helped lead the rally, where people marched a short distance on Interstate 25 from Rude Park to Lincoln Park at Mariposa Street and West 11th Avenue.

“It’s worth the struggle,” said Gonzales, who donned a T-shirt with an image of her father, a Denver native and figurehead of the Chicano movement in the 1960s and 1970s. “I understand that immigration raids put a chill on people’s ability to stand up and have a voice, but that’s what we have to do. We’re the citizens, we have to walk our talk and get up and do it and march.”

Asked about parallels between her father’s community organizing work in Colorado and the struggles that are currently faced by immigrants now in the state, Gonzales said, “I think the energy in the 1960s and 1970s was amazing, for several groups and organizations including those in the Chicano movement. We were under so much oppression then because we dared to speak up, and I truly believe that there is fear now. People are fearful.”

Gonzales was quick to add that “We can’t tolerate that. We have to stand up.”

In May, Gonzales became a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado against Denver officials and the United States Secret Service to disclose plans relating to parade routes and rally permits during the convention. At a press conference announcing the litigation, Gonzales stated that she had submitted a request for a parade permit in March and had yet to hear back from the city about where a parade would be permitted, how the parade permitting process would would work, or if she would even be granted a permit to hold a immigrant rights march while media and Democrats were in Denver for the convention.

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Popularity: 13% [?]

By Richard Cowan - Analysis

ST. PAUL (Reuters) - Immigration, once the hottest U.S. political issue, is on a backburner this election season with little firm evidence it will advance, no matter who moves into the White House in January.

Calls for securing the southern U.S. border and overhauling outdated immigration laws exploded onto the national scene in 2006 with demonstrations in several big cities. Washington failed to work out a broad deal the following year.

Two months before the presidential election, interest in immigration reform has given way to worries over energy prices. That, coupled with different strategies for wooing the votes of the country’s growing Hispanic population and a sour U.S. economy, could be why immigration reform is dormant.

“Despite the fact that immigration was the hottest issue, the thing that everyone talks now is energy,” said Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, a member of the House of Representatives’ Republican leadership team, during a brief interview.

As global oil prices surged this year, hitting U.S. consumers hard because of their gas-guzzling ways, Republicans in Congress have wanted to talk about little else lately other than expanding domestic oil drilling.

Immigration reform was once a signature issue for Sen. John McCain, who accepts the Republican Party’s nomination this week as their choice to run against Democrat Barack Obama in the November 4 election.

Upholding his reputation as a political maverick, the Arizona senator had infuriated many Republican conservatives with his efforts to allow some who came to the United States illegally to work their way to permanent legal status.

McCain also has embraced President George W. Bush’s project to build a 670-mile fence separating the United States and Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out. Conservatives insist the fence along the southern U.S. border is an important national security tool.

Democrats have promised to pass an immigration reform bill during Obama’s first year in office. But plenty of details need to be worked out and efforts likely would be slowed by Republicans not wanting to hand Obama any major legislative victories, according to a former customs and border enforcement official close to the immigration debate.

U.S. ECONOMY NEEDS WORKERS

Whether the passion for immigration reform flares again will depend in part on the health of the U.S. economy. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who opposes broad reforms, said rising unemployment in the United States is now discouraging both parties from raising the issue.

But U.S. companies, many of which back broad reforms, want a more efficient way for bringing in more foreign workers, from low-paid temporary farm hands to nursing home helpers and high-paid high-tech specialists.

“Both (political) parties are ducking the immigration issue,” said Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “They don’t want to get in the middle of it because everyone wants the Hispanic vote” that could be critical in many states this year, he said.

That means, he said, that immigration reform advocates will ride their support among Hispanics to victory, while opponents, many of them conservative Republicans, will try to avoid the topic.

The tough part of immigration reform, which pits McCain against his party’s conservatives, is “amnesty,” or whether an estimated 12 million foreigners who came to the United States illegally, should be allowed to eventually stay.

Many of them now have U.S.-born offspring.

Cecilia Munoz, senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza, the largest U.S. Hispanic civil rights group, disputes that the trail has gone cold on immigration reform. She noted that “in state and local elections all over the country, people are talking about it.”

From her view, the presidential candidates “do not have huge differences.”

The question is whether McCain, if elected, will be able to maintain a passionate support for broad reform and bring his party with him, Munoz said.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

Republicans will anoint McCain as their leader this week, all the while embracing an immigration plank declaring: “We oppose amnesty. The rule of law suffers if government policies encourage or reward illegal activity.”

That stance might satisfy the most conservative in the Republican Party. But it risks offending another important constituency: longtime McCain supporters like Betty Hill.

The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who traveled from San Antonio, Texas, to attend the Republican convention, said she wants comprehensive immigration reform as one of the top goals of a McCain administration.

Voicing support for amnesty, Hill said: “What do you do with 12 million people? There’s no way you can deport all of them.”

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By Paul Kiernan, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said Monday he expects either Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., or Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to pass an immigration reform law quickly, whoever wins the presidential election.

“I believe that whichever one of the American candidates is elected for president, they will succeed in passing soon - sometime early next year - an immigration reform,” Clinton said at a press conference in Mexico City, adding that such legislation would lead to a “substantial improvement in the management of that problem, for both countries.”

Clinton also brushed aside the possibility that Democrat Obama may lose ground to Republican rival McCain in the race for U.S. Hispanic votes by not visiting Mexico, as McCain did earlier this month.

“Just like I don’t think you can say Sen. McCain doesn’t want the votes of German-Americans in Milwaukee because he hasn’t been to Germany yet,” Clinton said. “I assure you (Obama) is interested in a good relationship with Mexico and a positive relationship with the Hispanic community in our own country,” he added.

Clinton, who came to Mexico City to speak at the International AIDS conference and to announce a $50 million investment through his charitable foundation in sustainable development in Latin America, said he sees either of the two major- party candidates increasing development assistance in other parts of the world.

“(The two candidates) seem both very committed to the so-called soft-power issues,” he said. “I think they understand - and Americans understand now - that we do very well when people think we’re on their side.”

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