Marchers Crowd Inland Streets

Thousands of immigrant-rights protesters across Riverside and San Bernardino counties rallied Monday, joining a nationwide boycott and denouncing proposed federal immigration restrictions with boisterous marches, speeches and songs.

Lively crowds of citizens and undocumented workers hit the streets in Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Moreno Valley and Palm Springs, beating drums, blowing trumpets, rattling maracas and waving U.S. and Mexican flags. Many wore white T-shirts with black armbands.

“We’re fighting to give [immigrants] equal rights -- just asking to treat us in a humane way,” said UC Riverside sophomore Aimee Cuellar, 19, holding a sign reading “Legalize Not Terrorize.”

Law enforcement representatives reported no disturbances across the region.

The national boycott encouraged Latinos to stay home from work and school and avoid buying or selling anything to demonstrate their economic power for a single day.

At least 215,000 undocumented people live in Riverside and San Bernardino counties -- out of more than 3.8 million people -- according to Jeff Passell, a demographer with the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center in Washington. The Inland Empire, whose population is roughly 40% Latino, has the 10th largest concentration of illegal immigrants in the nation, Passell said.

“For us, it was a day of history,” said organizer Armando Navarro, an ethnic studies professor at UC Riverside who also helps coordinate the National Alliance for Human Rights, an immigrant-rights network. “For our adversaries, it was a day of infamy.”

Probation Officer Jami Wilson, 35, of Riverside stewed a bit as she watched the San Bernardino protests with a co-worker Monday. She said she didn’t mind immigrants coming to the United States to make a better life as long as they did so legally.

“I think people’s biggest problem with illegal immigrants is that they come in and suck the system dry,” Wilson said. “If you’re not here legally, do you get to come into the city and protest? We have to go to work every day and pay our taxes. We don’t have time to leave work and protest.”

Riverside police estimated that as many as 3,000 people -- students, parents, children in strollers, and elderly protesters -- marched from UC Riverside down University Avenue and through downtown chanting “Si, se puede” -- “Yes, we can” -- and waving handmade signs.

Demonstrators from UC Riverside joined hundreds more protesters, filling an intersection as they headed to the steps of the county administrative building. Speakers there decried a recent move by the Board of Supervisors authorizing Riverside County sheriff’s deputies to screen jail inmates for immigration status.

Outside San Bernardino City Hall, nearly 1,500 people congregated, waving Mexican and U.S. flags and brandishing signs bearing messages including “One Nation, Not One Race, Under God.”

“To me, this is racism; they’re targeting the Latino population,” said Jorge Razo, 29, of the federal government’s proposed restrictions on illegal immigrants.

About 6 p.m. the crowd in front of San Bernardino’s City Hall poured into nearby streets, marching by government buildings downtown and blocking a lane of traffic, chanting “Si, se puede” and “USA.” Police rushed to contain the 1,000 or so marchers who were beginning to snake aimlessly along downtown streets.

Just south of downtown San Bernardino, many businesses closed for the day.

Joe Diab said he was conflicted about keeping his liquor store open. “I won’t know until tomorrow what the neighborhood will think of me, or if they’ll forgive me for this,” said the 31-year-old Syrian immigrant.

A sign at a grocery across the street announced it was closed, for the first time in 10 years, as part of the boycott.

Katherine Johnson, manager of discount clothing store Fallas Paredes in San Bernardino, said she gave 10 of her 18 employees the day off to protest but wasn’t locking the doors while business was steady.

“Why would I close down?” Johnson asked. “I’m not an immigrant, and all the immigrants who work here got the day off.”

The city of Riverside, Cal State San Bernardino and the University of Redlands did not report significant absences or disruptions Monday, although UC Riverside’s cafeteria traffic dipped by 20%.

During the protest in Riverside, workers from auto body shops, restaurants and motels along University Avenue in Riverside’s Eastside neighborhood watched the passing crowd, with a few spectators joining in.

One counterprotester waited along the route to complain to the Riverside crowds that illegal immigrants drove wages down.

“They’ve destroyed the construction industry,” said Scott Evans, 44, of Riverside, a construction worker.

Bystanders in San Bernardino questioned demonstrators carrying the Mexican flag.

“That flag, it just [upsets] people,” said Rick Brunton, 43, a retired bricklayer from San Bernardino. “It would be like people from Canada coming down and flying the Canadian flag. We’d be like, ‘Go back and drink some Molson.’ ”

Schools across Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties saw extra absences Monday, but nothing like the massive, haphazard student walkouts that occurred in March.

Riverside Unified School District attendance was down by several hundred students, spread across all grade levels in the 43,000-student district. Unlike in previous protests that largely involved teens, parents took their children out of elementary school and many went to the demonstrations. Schools were largely calm throughout the city, said Kirk Louis, assistant superintendent of operations.

San Bernardino school officials had no official attendance numbers, but absences increased noticeably among 57,000 students, particularly in middle and high schools, according to Linda Hill, district spokeswoman.

Isabel Ramirez, 29, of Riverside brought sons Luis and Leonardo to the Riverside rally.

Ramirez, a student and a legal resident from Mexico City, doesn’t want her kids “to only know how to sweep, to only know how to clean,” she said in Spanish. Immigrants are “working our hands until they’re rough, our backs until they hurt,” Ramirez said. “We’re doing the hard work.”

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Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Lance Pugmire contributed to this report.