Beltway Area Indymedia

I am not a criminal

On Sep 2, over 10,000 immigrants and supporter rallied and marched in Prince William County, VA to oppose the fascistic restrictions the county is attempting to impose on immigrants.

With so many participants, the original march plan on the Prince William Parkway bike path had to be revised. Marchers streamed out for at least half a mile, and as it was impossible to double the march back, everyone had to turn around in place to double back!

As all this was going on, snipers on the roof of the Government Center watched and cops were stationed all the way around the crowd,though not at high density. Even ICE agents were in the area, but stayed out of sight as of 7PM.

Several speakers compared the current wave of anti-immigrant legislation to laws passed during slavery, with one reminding everyone present that Mexico refused to return runaway slaves to the U$.

One of the star speakers was Chief Billy Redwing Tayac of the Piscataway Nation, on whose land Prince William County sits. As most immigrants from Central and South America are of Native American/indigenous descent, Chief Tayac called for solidarity among all indigenous folks and welcomed the participants to Piscataway land.

He emphasized that his ancestors had long prayed for the return of Native people to Native American land-and that now the prayers of the ancestors have been answered, not from the spirit world, but from the Southern relatives of hard-pressed North American tribes.

He further stated that when European immigrants landed on American shores, they were not rounded up for lack of papers, but instead were fed and housed so they would not starve and freeze during brutal North American winters! (Remember, warfare came only AFTER the new arrivals began burning villages and stealing land.)

massive crowd