By Elisabeth Strillacci

SALISBURY — A second public protest in support of immigrants in downtown Salisbury is planned for Saturday, March 1, starting at Bell Tower Green park and moving along the streets on the sidewalks.

The event will run from 2-5 p.m. and is designed, according to the information on the event, to be “a peaceful protest in support of all of our immigrants neighbors. This nation is made up of immigrants that have migrated from many nations for a better opportunity. During these trying times, hey need our support to raise our voices and express our disapproval of the mass deportations that have been ordered.”

Organized by Lynda Santamaria who was also involved in the previous protest, the message is the same as the previous event, but Santamaria said she felt a second protest was warranted “to impress upon people the seriousness of this.”

“We want people to understand that the focus should be on immigration reform, and not on deporting people who are hard-working and contributors to society,” she said. “Unless they have committed crimes. We wholeheartedly agree with deporting those who are criminals. But people who have worked here for years, paying taxes, paying money into the system that they will never see and never get the benefit of, they deserve a chance to become American. They deserve to stay.”

Becoming legal is not as easy as many think, she added.

“It’s not a quick process. Unless you have a sponsor or fit into one of the very specific programs, you have no avenue,” Santamaria said. “People in their 20s and 30s that were brought here when they were one or two years old have no connections in other countries. No history, often no family, no association. This is all they know.”

She said it’s easy for people to forget that, but sending people to the country of their parents’ origin is not sending them “home,” but sending them somewhere unknown and often dangerous.

During the last protest two weeks ago, there were no anti-protestors despite rumblings that there would be. And while she is grateful for the peace, Santamaria said that if anyone does show up this weekend, “that’s certainly their right to do so.”

But she said the event she has planned is done properly, with a permit through the police department, “and we will stay on the sidewalks, as we are asked to. We were instructed to observe the crosswalk signs and traffic rules and we did so, and will do so this time.”

She said last time, police patrolled the area frequently and were aware of the event, but there was no call for their intervention, and she hopes this one will be peaceful as well. There was a single incident in which an officer asked them to move a bit farther back, which they did. Nothing more.

“We have reminded participants that there should be no profanity, and signs should not focus on criticizing the president. The issue is the immigration policies and programs and the need to revamp them,” she said. The flier for the event states “we ask that you please bring your flags and signs, no profanity or insulting signs, and protest peacefully.”

Last time, there were close to 150 in attendance, but this time Santamaria says the hope is the crowd will be larger because they have spread the word further.

“We’ve reached out beyond the Hispanic community, and the response we’ve had is very encouraging,” she said. “Of course you can’t be sure but with the amount of interest expressed, the hope is that there will be many more this weekend.”

The group plans to walk as much through downtown as possible, since last time they did not want to end up interfering with other scheduled events.

“Last time we had permission to walk all the way down toward Walmart but we didn’t want to get in the way of events that people had paid for,” said Santamaria. “This time, we’re not aware of any other events, so we will walk as far down as we can. We’ll stop once in a while, but visibility is important.”