Students Protest Anti-Immigrant Bill

Protests are continuing across the country against proposed changes to the nation's immigration laws. In the Los Angeles area, at least 11,000 students took part Tuesday in a second day of walkouts despite school lockdowns and threats from administrators. The majority of walkouts took place in California, where some 8,000 students from the Los Angeles Unified School District took to the streets. Over 3,000 students walked out of schools in other cities across California, as well as in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Texas, where crowds of demonstrators converged on city halls in Dallas and Houston.

Scores of schools were put under a strict lockdown to avoid the mass walkouts, but students defied the ban and marched in the streets waving flags and holding banners, many of them in the rain. A small numbers of arrests were reported as authorities began cracking down on the protests, rounding up demonstrators as truants and issuing citations. The widespread demonstrations appeared to be loosely organized, with students learning about them through mass emails, fliers, instant messages, cell phone calls and postings on MySpace.com web pages.

On Monday, as many as 40,000 students walked out of classes in Los Angeles alone. The walkouts followed a weekend of enormous rallies, including one Saturday that drew upwards of 1 million people in LA.

The Senate is preparing to begin debate this week on overhauling the nation's immigration laws. On Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would allow the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country a chance to work here legally and eventually become U.S. citizens.

Written by Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy and Republican Sen. John McCain, the bill would give undocumented immigrants a chance to earn green cards and eventually obtain citizenship. In order to do this, the immigrants would have to agree to spend six years as temporary workers, pay $2,000 in fines and all back taxes, undergo criminal background checks and show proficiency in English and civics. The committee agreed to the bill by a vote of 12 to 6, with all six votes against it coming from Republicans.

Immigration reform is proving to be an issue that deeply divides not only the country but the Republican Party. The House has already approved legislation written by Republican James Sensenbrenner that has been described as the most repressive immigration bill in 70 years. House bill 4437 would, among other things, make every undocumented immigrant a felon and make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer help to undocumented immigrants.

Yesterday Democracy Now! reached some of the students in California who were staging walkouts. They spoke out about immigration reform and why they were taking to the streets. We go to Los Angeles to speak with two guests: Jasmine Chavez is a 17-year-old student at Montebello High School and Luis Rodriguez is a community activist, poet and writer. He is author of the award-winning memoir "Always Running: La VidaLoca: Gang Days in L.A." and, most recently, "Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Dangerous Times." He founded the Tia Chucha Press, which publishes young socially engaged poets, and is also a founder of Youth Struggling for Survival, a Chicago-based youth community organization. Rodriguez walked out of his middle school in Los Angeles during walkouts in 1968.

Juan Gonzalez: Yesterday, we reached some of the students in California who were staging walkouts. They spoke out about immigration reform and why they were taking to the streets.

Fermin Vasquez: My name is Fermin Vazquez. I'm a senior at Bauman High School. A group of friends and I decided to walk out of school after first period, because we are opposed to the law that is currently being discussed in the Senate called HR 4437.