Of the 20,000 people expected, a crowd of about 8,500 immigrant workers and their supporters march on City Hall, calling for an end to blanket work-site immigration raids.

By Teresa Watanabe and Anna Gorman
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

In numbers that were notably light, immigrant workers and their supporters gathered in downtown Los Angeles this afternoon for a May Day march to demand legislative reforms and an end to blanket raids on work sites.

Two years ago, the May Day march drew more than 500,000 supporters registering their protest of recently scuttled plans to make being an illegal immigrant a felony. Last year, the crowd was estimated at 35,000 and today police estimated about 8,500 protesters from two main marches converged on City Hall in the late afternoon.

The mood was festive, with vendors hawking flags -- American and Mexican -- along with Popsicles, shaved ice, and fresh fruit. Men and women pushed ice-cream carts and rang their bells. A man carried a huge white cross marked "Jesus Sin Fronteres" -- Jesus Without Borders. At 1st Street and Broadway, Neil Diamond's "Coming to America" was playing over a loudspeaker. The smell of frying sausages and bacon-wrapped hot dogs filled the air.

The May Day marches in cities across the U.S. were expected to be smaller than in the past -- about 20,000 were predicted in Los Angeles -- and quieter. Widespread fear of government raids was blamed for the lower turnout, along with the immigrant movement's shift in focus from marches to boosting citizenship applications and voter registration.

Pete Navarro, president of the Mexican American Bar Assn., said Spanish-language disc jockeys were not promoting the event as heavily as they did in previous years. And with immigration reform efforts stalled in Congress, there have been no urgent headlines inducing marchers to get out and show the flag.

Rick Oltman spokesman for the anti-illegal immigration group Californians for Population Stabilization said march organizers may have deliberately sought to avoid a big turnout.

"They realized that all these numbers hurt them in terms of support," he said. "It is reminding the American people that there is this whole group of people, illegal aliens, who do not want our laws enforced."

Calling for a host of immigration reforms, marchers have found allies in local political leaders and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. In a news conference this morning, the chamber stressed the need for more worker visas and a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants.

"This is a landmark moment," said Sam Garrison, the chamber's vice president of public policy. "Here you have labor, business, local elected officials, immigrant rights activists and leading educators all coming together to say this has to stop.

"The raids are frightening workers. They are worrying employers," he said. "I think it's going to cause a lot of businesses to think twice about coming to Los Angeles."

By late afternoon, the event was proceeding without any significant confrontations between marchers and police. Last year, an otherwise peaceful march degenerated into a chaotic and violent episode at MacArthur Park. Officers clubbed protesters and media, fired non-lethal riot guns into the crowd, and ultimately generated more than 250 legal claims from people who said they were injured.

In a scathing self-appraisal, the department said officers used excessive violence and suffered from a failure of leadership at the scene. This year, the Los Angeles Police Department mounted elaborate training measures to prepare for the May Day crowd.

As people massed at MacArthur Park before trekking through downtown L.A., the air was relaxed. Officers on horseback made a deliberate effort to offer friendly greetings. After musicians played at a makeshift bandstand, activist Angelica Salas led a call-and-response litany in Spanish.

"For our families," she said.

"We march," came the answer.

"For work," she proclaimed.

"We march," came the answer.

"For our dignity."

"We march."

Along the route through a largely Latino neighborhood, small businesses -- shoe stores, jewelers, grocers -- had closed for the day. At his variety store, owner Zacarias Hernandez, 36, apologized for being open, saying he didn't realize the march would pass by.

Although undocumented, he has lived in the U.S. for 10 years and owned a business for seven years.

"This country has helped with everything," he said. "Except my papers."

Marching from MacArthur Park, Julie Mitchell, 24, a paralegal, said the crowd was lighter than expected.

"That's disappointing," she said. "But people are here. People showed up. They didn't forget about it."

Despite the low turnout, Mitchell said she thinks politicians will take note.

"People have to pay attention when the streets close down, when people march," she said.

Elias Zepeda, 71, who first came to the U.S. in 1959 as part of government's "bracero" worker program and is now a citizen, said he doesn't fault those who failed to show up.

"It's sad," he said in Spanish, "but they are scared of immigration and they have to work to pay their bills."

An afternoon march in Santa Ana drew only 200 people. The small but boisterous group marched in an hourlong, circular route through the city's downtown, flanked by police officers on motorcycles.

Some blamed the small numbers on a waning support and publicity from Spanish-language television and radio. Others attributed the decline to disappointment over the past two year's protests, which reaped no changes in policy.

"It's the economy," speculated Santa Ana City Councilwoman Michele Martinez, who participated in the march. "Who's going to miss work this time around?"

In the last two years, organizers have been split on whether supporters should honor the day by staying out of work, cutting school and boycotting businesses. This year, they shelved the idea, preferring to present a united front on comprehensive immigration reform, according to Salas executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles..

The Los Angeles Unified School District tallied 743 students who walked out of class to join the marches. The largest recorded contingent, about 300, left Manual Arts High on Vermont Avenue, south of downtown, about 10 a.m. About 100 exited Venice High on the Westside.

The issue of comprehensive reform has colored the presidential campaign, prompted hundreds of state and local legislative proposals, and brought tens of thousands of marchers into the streets across the nation every May Day for several years.

As the rhetoric has ratcheted up, immigration raids have become more frequent. In the last fiscal year, some 4,900 workers were swept up in local work-site arrests, compared with just over 100 in 2001. In one raid last February, authorities arrested more than 130 undocumented workers at a Van Nuys manufacturing company.

Continued raids could be bad for business, chamber officials said today, citing a study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. The report said tens of thousands of jobs could be lost if continued raids force businesses to flee the state. Enforcement efforts should focus on companies with a clear history of exploiting workers, it said.

"The immigrant worker built Southern California and the L.A. economy," Garrison said. "At the end of the day, they benefit everyone, whether legal or not."

Times staff writers Howard Blume, Tony Barboza, Jill Leovy, Evelyn Larrubia, Jessica Garrison, Sam Quinones, Ari Bloomekatz and Steve Chawkins contributed to this report.