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L.A. Reacts to Arizona Law with Demonstrations

By Brian Doherty
July 30, 2010
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Although a federal judge has stayed aspects of Arizona's new laws aimed at requirement immigrants to present papers, L.A. city is keeping its boycott, and angry L.A. citizens are hitting the street.

Details on the demonstration, which shut down Wilshire for a while on Thursday, from the L.A. Weekly:

The protest was declared an unlawful assembly and Los Angeles Police Department Metropolitan Division officers moved into to remove a "circle of 10" demonstrators that helped to block traffic for more than four hours.....On Wilshire Boulevard the several dozen protesters from the We Are All Arizona Collective focused on the nearby corporate offices of G4S Wackenhut Corp. Demonstrators said the international security consulting firm would benefit from Arizona's law, which took effect Thursday.

Despite Wednesday's court stay on Arizona's controversial SB 1070, the L.A. city boycott of the state will continue, as the Daily News reports:

"This confirms what we were saying, that this law is an affront to a democracy," said City Councilman Ed Reyes, who helped author Los Angeles' economic boycott of Arizona to protest its passage of Senate Bill 1070. "The judge agreed with us that this law just went too far."Reyes said he will talk with his colleagues to discuss rescinding the boycott if the court's preliminary junction is eventually finalized, which could take more than a year. But Reyes added that now is not time to stop the boycott.

L.A. Observed has a handy collection of local political and media reactions to the court's decision to block Arizona's law. Mayor Villaraigosa uses the Arizona controversy as a teaching moment to call for comprehensive federal immigration law reform.

(Photo: Ringo H.W. Chiu/Getty Images)

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