Catholics from parishes across the Archdiocese of Chicago were among thousands of people who joined the May Day march for immigration reform in Chicago May 1. The marchers, who walked peacefully down Washington Street from Union Park to Daley Plaza, were galvanized by the passage of an Arizona law that requires police to try to determine the immigration status of anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” may be in the country illegally, and requires immigrants to carry their documents with them at all times. Arizona Gov. Jen Brewer signed the law April 23. Organizers estimated the crowd at 20,000, while Chicago police estimated that 8,000 showed up for the walk. Among them were groups of Poles and Africans, along with Latinos. Mothers pushed strollers while fathers carried children on their shoulders, and many of the marchers carried American flags. “I think it’s the Arizona law that really got people fired up. God is always working,” said Father Larry Dowling, one of a few dozen people who volunteered to distribute water to marchers at Washington Street and Des Plaines Avenue. The water station was sponsored by Priests for Justice for Immigrants and Sisters and Brothers for Immigrants. Dowling was one of about two dozen people who were arrested April 27 in Broadview for blocking traffic trying to leave the Broadview Detention Center, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement processes people before sending them to O’Hare International Airport for deportation. Nearly 500 people participated in another May 1 march from St. Thomas of Villanova Parish in Palatine to Mision Juan Diego Catholic Church in Arlington Heights. Catholics have long spoken out on the need for immigration reform, especially since the release of “Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope,” a 2003 statement released jointly by the U.S. and Mexican Catholic bishops’ conferences. Among the document’s main points was the need for a familybased immigration system, one that would allow parents and children to remain together. The U.S. deportation system now does just the opposite, Dowling said, deporting undocumented parents while leaving their U.S. citizen children here. “We have to do something about this policy of tearing families apart,” said Dowling, pastor of St. Agatha Parish on Chicago’s West Side. “Under Obama, the number of deportations is going up, and ICE is not just going after criminals. It’s going after people just going to work.” Some of the marchers’ signs and T-shirts reflected his concern, with slogans such as “Obama, don’t deport my mama.” Others called on President Barack Obama to push more strongly for immigration reform, saying, “Friends keep their promises.” Marilu Gonzalez, immigration education coordinator for the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Immigrant Affairs and Immigrant Education, said the marchers are not as sanguine as they were on March 10, 2006, when more than 100,000 people marched for immigration reform from Union Park to federal plaza. Since then, several attempts at getting congressional action on a comprehensive immigration reform package have failed, and the number of people being deported has risen. At the same time, she said, the general public in many ways seems more sympathetic to the plight of undocumented workers. Immigration rights advocates are hoping that the passage of the Arizona law will provide a push towards immigration reform, she said. “Hope dies last,” she said. Jesuit Father Sajeev J. Painunkal, who is studying pastoral counseling at Loyola University before returning to his ministry in Calcutta, India, was on hand to support the marchers as well. “I don’t believe any human being is illegal,” he said. “We are all made in the image of God.”