Los Angeles News

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― Police and public transportation officials are bracing for what may be up to a half million immigration rights protesters in the Civic Center and MacArthur Park areas Tuesday, when 60 bus routes will be rerouted and parts of 17 downtown streets will be closed for much of the day.

Organizers of two separate rallies for labor and immigration law reforms expect more than 100,000 people at the Tuesday gatherings. That's fewer than the roughly 650,000 persons who mobilized last year to protest current American immigration laws.

But Los Angeles police note that many schoolchildren are planning to boycott classes again this year, and head downtown.

Starting at 8 a.m., protestors will gather at Olympic Boulevard and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. At noon, the crowd will march north to City Hall. Authorites expect the group to snarl access to the courts buildings and other government offices.

A second march will start at 2 p.m. at the intersection of West 3rd Street and Vermont Avenue in Koreatown, and head on sidewalks east and south to MacArthur Park for a 5:30 p.m. rally there. That march will likely snarl traffic west of the Civic Center during rush hour, police said.

Sixty bus routes will be rerouted and sections of 17 downtown streets will be closed for most of Tuesday because of the marches.

"LADOT will be working closely with LAPD to keep traffic moving in the downtown area and to keep our DASH downtown and Commuter Express buses running as efficiently as possible under the circumstances," said Los Angeles Department of Transportation General Manager Gloria J. Jeff.


In Orange County, several thousand marchers are expected to gather at 3 p.m. at the Plaza of Flags in Santa Ana, and then march to 17th and Bristol streets and then back to the plaza.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials are trying to convince students not to ditch for the day, something many as 24,000 students did at the height of the March 25 Coalition boycott and protests last year.

"We understand and respect our student's feelings on current legislative (immigration) proposals, however, we want them to attend school and find alternative ways to voice their opinions," said Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent David L. Brewer III.

If students do participate in the downtown rallies, the district will send buses to pick up the children and bring them back to school. District officials did not say how much those buses would cost.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, a vocal supporter of undocumented immigrants, urged students to voice their opinions by writing to their representatives in Washington, D.C.

"Wouldn't it be fantastic if tomorrow 100,000 letters got mailed across this city from young people to our legislators in the Congress and Senate saying we desperately need immigration reform," Mahony said.

Meanwhile, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell made a similar plea at John Marshall Senior High School in Los Angeles. He also went to San Diego to convey the same message. "I encourage all California students to honor the struggles of immigrant parents by working hard in school on May 1st and every day of the school year," O'Connell said. "The great civil rights leader Cesar Chavez was a friend of mine. I learned from him that organized protest can be a highly effective way of focusing attention on civil rights struggles. But, I also know that Cesar Chavez believed in education and would not want students to sacrifice their opportunity to get an education." When students aren't in school, the schools lose funding. There are also significant fiscal penalties for schools that do not offer the number of instructional days and minutes required in a school year, school officials said. O'Connell spokeswoman Hilary McLean said she did not know what to expect.

"We actually hope it's a very small number of students that are impacted and that's why we are doing this, to get the word out," she said. "But we don't know. The advocates are really encouraging the students to stay home and we wanted to offer a responsible counter to that," McLean said. Although school officials could not say exactly how much funding was at stake, McLean said, "we do know if there's a significant number of absences it could affect the schools financially."

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)