"A Sea of Demonstrators" posted by Richard Seymour

Crowds marched through the city on Friday to rally against HR 4437 – The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005.

Supporters of the bill before Congress say it beefs up border protection. But thousands of people in Chicago's Latino community call the pending bill a blatant violation of rights.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, the protesters -- of Polish, Irish, Latino, Chinese and many other nationalities -- gathered at Union Park, at Ashland Avenue and Lake Street, and marched to the Loop. From the air, it appeared to be an endless sea of demonstrators, flooding the streets to protest the recently-passed house bill, which would make it a crime to hire or even help undocumented immigrants.

At the end of the day, organizers say it was more than half a million protesters. Police estimated the crowd at 300,000.

“I'm definitely surprised to see this many people,” said protester Cesar Garza. “I expected a small amount of crowd, but this is… wow! I'm really surprised.”