Thousands march for protection of aliens

? Thousands of immigrant rights supporters formed a line stretching more than a mile long Saturday as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, waving flags from more than a dozen countries as they demonstrated against possible immigration reform in Congress.

Heralded by a cacophony of trumpets, whistles and drums, the crowd of mostly Latin Americans gathered in downtown Brooklyn and trudged a path laden with symbols of the city’s immigrant strength on their way to a plaza in lower Manhattan.

There were demonstrations across the country this week against legislation already approved in the House, which would make it a felony to be in the U.S. without the proper immigration paperwork.

Competing legislation under consideration in the Senate would take an opposite approach and give the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. a chance at citizenship.