At 10:15 a.m., the corner of Neil St. and Green St. is quiet, aside from the sounds daily traffic. In a matter of 45 minutes, the corner filled with protesters carrying loudspeakers, Mexican Flags, bottles filled with popcorn kernels and signs that read “si se puede (yes we can).

Under the watchful eye of a police escort, the protesters marched down Green St. shouting, “Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don’t stop.”

The protesters marched as part of a nation-wide effort to reform refugee and immigrant rights. Recently, federal agents stormed Little Village Discount in the prominently Latino Southwest Side of Chicago and arrested 12 people who were allegedly selling fake identification papers to workers.

Also, raids were recently executed on a meat packing plant in Beardstown Ill., in which roughly 100 illegal immigrants were apprehended. The force that was used in these raids has outraged members of the Latino American community.

Check out tomorrow’s edition of The Daily Illini for the full story about the protest