By DPA
Washington : A swarm of baby strollers descended on the White House accompanied by hundreds of children, their parents and organisers hoping to put children at the forefront of a push for US immigration law reform and to protest policies that separate families.
The march of about 2,000 people brought together groups of immigrants from across the country just as the US Congress is set to again tackle controversial legislation that would overhaul US immigration laws for the first time in decades.
As the immigration issue has come to the political forefront, children born with US citizenship who have watched their parents forced to leave the country have drawn attention and put a human face on an issue that most politicians say needs to be fixed – even if they disagree on how.
One such child, Kunal Sah, 13, who has US citizenship because he was born here, saw his parents return to India after being denied political asylum, but chose to stay with his aunt and uncle in Utah.
He went on to compete in the National Spelling Bee last month, and the competition became a hook for international media attention, including articles in Indian newspapers and on the front page of the New York Times.
However, the vast majority of those at Tuesday's march were Hispanic, reflecting the onslaught of immigration by those in Latin America seeking higher wages in the US.
At the march, the children carried posters with the face of a crying child separated from her parents in prominent immigration raids earlier this year.
The crying girl symbolized the outrage after a raid at a factory in New Bedford Massachusetts in March left children scared and abandoned after their parents were apprehended at work and detained for being in the country illegally.
The march was timed to coincide with the political debate on the issue and to tug on politician's heartstrings after the US celebration of Fathers' Day on Sunday, by urging children to protest on behalf of their parents, many of them here illegally.
Some marchers carried posters showing a small boy and his father next to a Christmas tree under the words, "Where's my daddy on Fathers' Day?"
The theme continued with a giant, symbolic Fathers' Day card for US President George W. Bush. Showing the president with his daughters on the outside, it wished him a happy fathers' day, but noted: "It isn't one for us".
Deportations go largely unnoticed across the country. More than 200,000 foreign nationals were removed from the US in 2005 through formal channels, and another estimated 1.3 million were turned back at or near the border, according to the office of immigration statistics.
No numbers were available on how many of those cases separated family members who are US citizens from those who were here illegally.
The immigration bill championed by Bush appeared to die earlier this month, before being revived in a congressional compromise late last week. It would overhaul immigration laws, providing for an expanded "guest worker" programme and a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million or more people living illegally in the US.
Bush's own Republican Party rejected his previous efforts to push through the bill. It stands a better chance with the new Democratic-controlled Congress, but still faces tough opposition from both sides.