Beltway Area Indymedia

In a sanctuary city, police and city agencies are prohibited by law from asking anyone's immigration status or cooperating in any way with ICE. Takoma Park was declared such a sanctuary during the war in El Salvador, for instance.
Immigrants and their supporters held a rally and march out of Malcolm X Park on Mayday, May 1st, to demad and end to ICE's raids, the defeat of Bush's enforcement and guest worker immigration bill(STRIVE), and for DC to be declared a Sanctuary City.

(AUDIO: 5 min 36 seconds)

Even before the May 1 rally could start, there was trouble. Several members of the MinuteKlan showed up, one brandishing a machete and a flare gun. They were thought to have escaped after pushing and assaulting several people, but the cops captured the goon with the flare gun. Scouts put out during the rally found no further sign of the MinuteKlan.

About 500 people showed up in Malcolm X Park for the rally. One of the featured speakers was Rhyme from the DC Radio co-op as featured on Voices with Vision on WPFW(Thursdays at 11 AM). She was one of the fasters from the protest in Mount Pleasant, and ceremonially broke her fast at the rally.

Shortly before the march a traditional Mayan dance was conducted. The dance was described (interview on audio file with drums of the ceremony) as a dance conducted for warriors before going out to face enemies of the community!

The march did something different from the usual DC marches to empty buildings. This time, the march went North into the neighborhoods, going up into Mount Pleasant instead of downtown. On Kenyon St and on 14th st, there was a lot of honking horns and general shows of support from passers by and workers up in buildings. There is clearly a lot of community support behind this issue!

While the DC march was small, the AP admitted to a turnout of 150,000 in Chicago and 25,000 in LA. This is one issue that is not going away-Amnesty or Else!