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NARR: More than a hundred thousand demonstrators filled the streets near City Hall in New York on Monday and organizers are elated by the turnout. Chris Fleming of the Service Employees International Union local eleven ninety-nine helped organize the march.
FLEMING: The sheer numbers have awoken the republican right and the folks that are looking who want to make such drastic immigration changes. I think they've woken up after seeing the power and the strength of seeing all of these immigration organizations coming together. (16 sec)
NARR: Aside from the politicians, Fleming hopes that this awareness turns into voter support for pro-immigrant candidates in the fall.
FLEMING: Everybody in one way, shape or form has touched an undocumented immigrant. They're in your Bodegas when you're in Manhattan, they're in your streets when you're in other states working on lawns and mowing lawns.
NARR: But Rodolfo de la Garza, a political science professor at Columbia University, says he doesn't think the demonstrations will translate quickly into political capital.
DE LA GARZA: Politicians have very little foresight. (3 sec)
NARR: And many of the demonstrators are not citizens.
DE LA GARZA: Even if they were citizens, they don't vote Republican. And they're not citizens and don't vote.
NARR: De la Garza says the demonstrations may have some effect on Latino voters nationwide, since a majority of undocumented immigrants are Latino. But he expects that effect to be minimal.
DE LA GARZA: To the extent that they influence the citizen segment of the Latino population, they influence them in districts where Latinos are already influential with the Democrats.
NARR: For example, in California, New York and Illinois. There are more than eleven million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. De la Garza says, the real way for those people to get political influence is for them to get the right to vote.
DE LA GARZA: If you ever were able to develop a really effective naturalization campaign and mobile the naturalized, you'd be very important.
NARR: But immigrant advocates say they hope this week's demonstration numbers make an impact on the midterm elections this November. Elsa Heidorn, Columbia Radio News.