Despite a chilly rain Monday morning, more than 100 protesters from different ethnicities marched north from Broadway and Olympic to City Hall in a rally for immigration reform. The first row of protesters held a horizontal banner that says “Legalizacion! La Lucha Sigue."

Clad in raincoats and holding umbrellas, protesters chanted while pounding drums and blowing whistles. Some came directly from Occupy The Ports in Long Beach earlier that morning. Two bus-loads of people representing San Fernando Valley also joined the protest. 

Javier Rodriguez, 67, was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. as a child. He demanded legalization of the 11 million undocumented immigrants across this country, and said legalization would stop the separation and deportation of families.

"The immigrant community—we're part of the 99 percent," Rodriguez said. "We're a great majority who are suffering the economic crisis in this country just like the rest of the American people."

Most undocumented residents either entered the U.S. without inspection or were admitted temporarily and stayed past the date they were required to leave, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

According to the department's Office of Immigration Statistics, 10.8 million undocumented immigrants were living in the U.S. as of January 2010, unchanged from the previous year but 8 percent below the peak of 11.8 million in January 2007.

Alicia Flores, one of the organizers of this protest, said the government should change the 1996 immigration law and stop penalizing immigrants who come to the country without documents. 

"They have the rights to be happy and be with their family. They have the rights to be out of the shadow since they're already paying taxes, and they're contributing for the economy of this country," Flores said. "They're not criminals."

Wendy Duchen, 31, Latino, is a union organizer from SEIU United Long Term Care Workers (LTCUW), a long-term care organization in California that represents thousands of immigrant workers.

"Without those workers, our country is not going to be able to move forward," Duchen said. "Corporations are just treating us like puppets, destroying our communities, destroying here, destroying our countries at home. If we don't do something about it, nobody else will."

The protest ended on Broadway between 1st and Temple where several protesters gave speeches, occasionally echoing chants from the audience. 

Police monitored the peaceful demonstration, flanking the marching protesters without intervening. It was a show of respect LAPD Capt. Bill Murphy attributed to compliance with the law. "They behaved, and they followed all the rules," Murphy said. "They had a permit to do this."

Reach reporter Gracie Zheng here.