Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants and their supporters marched in mass rallies across the US Tuesday calling for legalization of their status, according to dpa. The marches in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington and over 60 other cities came as US President George W Bush is pushing for a guest worker programme that has been opposed by many immigrant groups since it does not include a clear path to permanent residence or citizenship for the estimated 12 million foreigners in the US without legal residence permits. The marches were also intended to protest recent federal raids that resulted in more than 18,000 arrests nationwide. "We want to work here legal," said Santos Abraham, 40, a Guatemalan immigrant who took part in a march in Oakland, California. "We like to do the work for the American people." Some of the biggest rallies were expected in Los Angeles, where police said an estimated 100,000 people were on the march downtown Tuesday morning. An estimated 1 million undocumented immigrants live in the southern California city. Last year, over 650,000 people demonstrated in a May 1 march, as many students took the day off school to participate in the protests. This year, city, school district and church leaders have urged students to stay in school and the pleas seemed to have been heeded. Organisers' calls for a commercial boycott also seemed to have gone unheeded with most stores and businesses open as usual. Seasar Donaires, 25, was one of those sitting the march out. Donaires, an immigrant from Mexico who is now a US citizen, said he is disillusioned with the pace of progress since last year's historic rallies. "I went screaming all the way to City Hall, but nothing has been accomplished," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It's a big waste of time. Nobody's listening to us this year. It's not going to have impact."
