Chicago ? Six employees at a seafood restaurant in Houston were fired this week after skipping work to take part in a pro-immigration march. In Detroit, 21 immigrants lost their jobs as meat cutters after attending a similar protest last month.

And several students at a high school near Tampa, Fla., were suspended this week for walking out of class to go to a demonstration.

Across the country, workers and students have paid a price for attending the immigration rallies that have recently swept the nation. They have lost jobs or been cited for truancy for joining the hundreds of thousands who have protested proposed federal legislation that would crack down on illegal immigrants.

In one case, the family of a 14-year-old Los Angeles-area boy said he committed suicide because he was threatened by a school official for participating in immigration protests. School officials disputed that.

Now, some rally organizers are telling people not to risk their jobs or education to attend the demonstrations and are considering rescheduling protests to weekends and evenings.

“This is a concern because this is a demographic of people who have historically not come out into the streets to raise an issue,” said Germonique Jones, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Center for Community Change, an umbrella group behind the rallies. “Obviously, businesses have to be run, and it’s only right for people to tell their employers that they will be out beforehand. … We don’t want people losing their jobs over this.”

But many others say marchers want to make the sacrifice to show the importance of immigration reform.

In some cases, fired workers have been offered their jobs back after advocacy groups have gotten involved, including the 21 Detroit meatpacking company workers. The company said Thursday that it would rehire them, but only if the staffing company they were hired through can confirm they are legal immigrants.

Pedro Ortega, 30, was fired along with nine co-workers from an automotive parts factory in a suburb south of Chicago after attending a March 10 immigration march that drew more than 100,000 people.

Ortega, who has worked at the factory for eight years, said attending the march was worth the repercussions, and he plans to attend another rally in Chicago scheduled for May 1.

“We have to change the way the American people think about us,” Ortega said. “We are here to work and to make our lives better.”, a boy, Thursday.