Rally May Gauge Future of Immigration Movement

Counties in Ohio, Texas and California have authorized sheriff's deputies to turn over illegal immigrants to federal authorities for possible deportation after stopping them for minor traffic violations.

Sheriff's deputies in other counties will receive training from federal immigration authorities on spotting, arresting and deporting illegal immigrants.

"Have the marchers been a spur? Maybe in some places," said Rick Swartz, an immigrant organizer, who founded the National Immigration Forum. "The marchers have given the anti-immigration movement something to complain about, and they are piling on a backlash that began years ago."

Counter-protesters have shown up at other immigrant rallies. Organizers in Phoenix predicted their rally on Monday would attract 10,000 pro-immigrant demonstrators to the state capitol -- about 2,000 showed up.

In Chicago, about 250 marchers trekked west for four days from Chicago to Batavia, Ill., where about 2,000 activists rallied near the district offices of U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R).

Organizers initially predicted a turnout of 1 million, but they now are projecting a crowd similar to the one at a rally on the National Mall on April 10. A police official estimated that the demonstration drew at least 100,000 people; organizers pegged attendance about 500,000.

"Even in the dog days of summer, there has been an incredible amount of energy," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, which is bringing about 10 busloads of demonstrators.

About 200 buses -- half from Eastern states outside the Washington region -- are scheduled to stream into the District for the 4 p.m. rally. Local organizers have contracted fewer buses than for previous protests and have encouraged local demonstrators to take public transportation.

Ricardo Juarez, coordinator of the immigrant advocacy group Mexicans Without Borders, said he feared that many immigrants who skipped work for the spring rallies might be hesitant to leave their jobs early now, when signs do not point to action in Congress.

"There was more energy, more interest," earlier this year, Juarez said.

Area organizers said they are pinning some hope for new energy on non-Latinos, whom they worked harder to attract, both to broaden the base of the movement and to make the efforts more palatable to opponents whose criticism has centered on Hispanics who have sneaked across the border.

Organizers printed fliers in Arabic, Swahili, Korean, Amharic, French and Chinese, among other languages. African and Asian community organizations publicized the demonstration in news conferences with local ethnic media.

In each, they emphasized that the effect of immigration reform would stretch beyond Latinos, by potentially cracking down on the 200,000 estimated illegal Korean immigrants, for example, or by influencing the backlog for relatives' immigration applications.

"If we leave this alone and let the Latino community take the lead on this alone . . . they have a limited power and political power," said Chung Pak, chairman of the League of Korean Americans of Maryland. "Other affected communities must help form a coalition to make sure that whatever comes out would not be detrimental."

Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.