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Immigrant-Rights Events Held Across Chicagoland

 Slideshow: Rallies Across The U.S.

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Massive immigration rights rallies are getting larger and louder coast to coast.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, those joining the massive immigration rallies that started here in Chicago last month are pushing for the rights of undocumented workers.

On the mall in Washington and from coast to coast, what had been a sizeable silent minority was silent no more.

This was also true at Chicago's Truman College Monday night, one of 150 rallies held nationwide on Monday.

Several hundred people crowded into a cafeteria to hear speeches from community leaders, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Congressman Luis Gutierrez. Some in attendance held placards reading, "Today we march, tomorrow we vote."

"This is when the people speak. And when the people speak, they will be heard," Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said.

Gutierrez had the audience chant the White House telephone number, urging them to call it and have their friends and relatives call it "until there are millions and millions of phone calls to the switchboard at the White House and we achieve comprehensive immigration reform."

"We crafted the bill. Now is the time for the President of the United States, President Bush, to put political capital behind the bill he said he wanted," Gutierrez said.

As significant as what we saw here in Chicago and elsewhere Monday is what we didn't see: Americans just as passionate that amnesty for those living and working here without proper documentation is wrong.

"And this idea that you don't have to observe the law, if you can sneak in, if you can break into my house. Once you're in my house I'm supposed to say it's okay? It's not okay," said counter-demonstrator Jim Nazarowski.

Sen. Barack Obama understands his argument.

"This is not an amnesty. An amnesty would be to say, 'Tommorrow, you suddenly become U.S. citizen,'" Obama said. "You have to earn this over a course of 11 years. You have to have a job. You have to learn English. You have to stay out of trouble. You have pay a fine."

And get to the back of the line of others applying for citizenship, a plan similar to what the president proposed.

All of Monday's Chicagoland activity comes on the heels of last month's peaceful demonstrations in Chicago that drew thousands of protesters.

Aside from the Truman College event Monday evening, the day's events included a school walkout at Morton East High School, a protest in front of Congresswoman Melissa Bean's office, a march and rally at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign campus and an immigration rights vigil at Congressman Dan Lipinski's office.

"Parents come here illegally and have U.S. citizen kids and you divide families. So what's going to happen to the kids?" asked Luis Blanco, one of the Morton East students who demonstrated. Ninety percent of the school's student body is Hispanic.

The protests in front of the offices of Melissa Bean and Bill Lipinski demonstrated one thing for sure: Immigration is an issue with no clear cut lines and few plain solutions.

Groups of demonstrators in Schaumburg, made up of some legal citizens and some undocumented, protested Bean's support of a U.S. House of Representatives bill that would build a 700-mile fence on the border and would make felons of anyone in the country illegally or anyone helping them.

Bean offered the following statement: "The first step to addressing both illegal immigration and homeland security is strengthening our border. Along with the majority of Americans, Congress, and the Illinois delegation, I supported this common sense bill, which protects our nation by strengthening border security and requiring additional screening of cargo entering the United States. As with every bill I vote on, I carefully considered this legislation and I stand by my vote."

"There are millions of people who have needs," said demonstrator Jose Manzilla.

Congressman Dan Lipinski is skeptical of the bill now pending in the Senate that immigration reformers strongly favor. Some of those same skeptical sentiments were heard elsewhere.

"I think we're in a fix because it was allowed to get out of control," said counter-demonstrator Al Steffens.

Area protests were mostly peaceful, but became heated at times when counter-demonstrators showed to voice their opinions.

Three times during the Bean demonstration, people with a different message jumped in and were helped out by police to their cars for their own safety.

According to the University of Illinois, there are 500,000 undocumented immigrants in Illinois.

Obama said during a town hall meeting Monday at Loyola University in Chicago that "there has to be a pathway to citizenship for those who are already here ... for practical reasons as well as moral reasons."

"We want those people out of the shadows, paying taxes, subject to the same kinds of rules and regulations and protections as everybody," Obama said.

At an appearance in Chicago, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said many immigrants are "law-abiding, honest people who are working every single day to build a better life for their children."

He said labeling illegal immigrants felons would be "insensitive to the realities as they exist and we have to recognize the complexities of this problem and again recognize that we're a country built by immigrants and one that celebrates the immigrant experience."

A House bill passed in December would make it a felony to be in the country illegally. A Senate bill would allow some people here illegally to apply for citizenship.

"There are going to be some expressions by many people very unhappy with the Senate not passing a bill and very unhappy with the House bill," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-PA.

Specter expects his colleagues to come back from a two-week break and finish the bill.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)