By Christina Wu

When I arrived to the La Placita immigration rally downtown, I wandered past all the street vendors, hot dog stands and ice cream carts. Cardinal Mahoney was about to give his speech and I approached one of the nuns, who was anxiously surrounding the podium.

Read more on my protest excursion.

Sister Patricia Krommer from Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace said her love for the Latino community drove her to support the rally.

“I believe in their cause and believe they are Americans. We make it hard for immigrants to survive in America. We should legalize all undocumented immigrants who are here now.”

Krommer says she believes the McCain-Kennedy Bill is the solution to immigration reform. The bill would allow immigrants to apply for temporary worker status with their employers. She argues the bill will give undocumented workers higher wages and expose them to less exploitation.

After talking to Krommer, I headed deeper into the crowd and was lost in a sea of protestors, people standing around with hot dogs and snacks and the media. It felt more like a bazaar or fairground than it did a protest. I stopped by to ask the security guards what their sentiments were about the rally.

Speaking anonymously, one Latino security guard voiced his concerns about the illegal immigrants in this country.

“They’re a burden to society. We pay for them through our taxes, they tap into our social security funds, they take away our food stamps and our education suffers because their children don’t speak English. If the churches are behind them, the churches need to start paying for immigrant expenses. Make the employers pay for them, since they hired them. People should really look at the cost of these illegal immigrants living in the United States. I come from a family of immigrants myself, but they didn’t come here illegally.”

Even though this Latino security officer expressed discontent with illegal immigrants, he said he was only there to do his job. He was only there to protect the protestors and maintain a peaceful state.