The Washington Post reports that a group of roughly 150 gathered in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Washington, DC to protest lack of action on comprehensive immigration reform. In President Obama’s election campaign, one of the main themes used to secure Latino and immigrant votes was the promise of immigration reform; without it, those same communities are up-in-arms and threatening to stay home during upcoming election cycles.

The protest, intended to be much more disruptive, turned out to cause little trouble. Police redirected traffic away from the protesters and, while they expected they would be arrested, the police never took any of them into custody. They moved to the more heavily-traveled Independence Avenue, only to have police redirect traffic again. Some protesters sat in the streets, only to be moved by police officers back to the sidewalk.

Holding signs and loudspeakers at a noon rally, the group of community organizers, advocates and faith leaders chanted “Si, se puede” (”Yes, we can”) before about 20 of them joined hands across 12th Street SW near Maryland Avenue, blocking traffic. They sat on the road and waited for police to bring out their handcuffs.

“We want to bring attention to the lack of movement on immigration reform,” said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland, one of the organizing groups.

Citing President Obama’s promises to pursue immigration reform in the first year of his administration, he said: “We were very excited, because the great majority of the Latino community said: ‘Finally, we have a president who looks like us, and he’s going to fight for us.’ . . .

“We want to let him know that if there’s no reforms, he’s not going to be reelected. The Latino community and the immigrant community are not going to believe him.”

Photo (via America’s Voice Online)