May Day immigration rallies statewide attract low crowd numbers

A round-up of Thursday's May Day immigration marches shows that crowd numbers statewide were lower than expected, which raises some legitimate speculation as to how much impact such large Hispanic protests will have on immigration policy this election year.

Sacramento: A crowd of several hundred immigrants circled the Capitol, with The Sacramento Bee reporting chants of, "We have rights, we pay taxes." The Bee quoted one marching construction worker as saying that at his worksite, "All the bosses knew we were not legal."

The Bay Area: It was a fairly standard San Francisco mix of anti-war/anti-Bush/pro-immigrant protests, with several thousand people marching in the city's pro-immigrant rallies and hundreds also rallying at Oakland City Hall, according to various news media. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted a pro-immigrant demonstrator as saying, "We're all native North Americans. We have a right to walk from the north of Alaska to the tip of Argentina."

Ports of Oakland, San Francisco and Long Beach-Los Angeles: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that upwards of 10,000 West Coast dockworkers did not show up for their day shifts at various ports to protest the Iraq war. Port officials minimized the work stoppage and compared it to a blue flu or holiday work levels.

Santa Rosa: About 2,500 people came to the local May Day rally, which The Press-Democrat said was below the 10,000 people who marched last year.

Fresno: Police said a peaceful downtown rally attracted some 700 people, The Fresno Bee reported.

Los Angeles: Police told PolitickerCA.com that the three downtown marches and central rally drew about 8,500 people, less than half of the 20,000 some organizers had predicted. Unlike last year's police/protester May Day melee, virtually no violence was reported at any rally site Thursday, with far-left/anarchist agitators kept in check by a very visible police presence.

Inland Empire: In San Bernardino about 20 anti-immigrant activists from The Minuteman Project protested outside the Mexican consulate, according to The Press-Enterprise in Riverside.

Orange County: A march in Hispanic-dominated Santa Ana attracted about 200, The Orange County Register reported, compared to almost 2,000 marchers last year and 15,000 in 2006.

San Diego: The Union-Tribune reported that, "a few hundred demonstrators," came out for a downtown-bound march. A few anti-immigrant Minutemen activists showed up in opposition, and like in San Bernardino and Orange County they also protested at the local Mexican consulate, the newspaper said.