An estimated 300 people rally at the State House yesterday, holding signs that read “No human being is illegal” and “Stop the abuse of immigrant workers.”

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — On a cool, sunny spring day, hundreds of supporters of immigrant rights turned out at a May Day rally yesterday to decry Governor Carcieri’s executive order that requires state police to check the status of people they suspect of being here illegally and report them to federal immigration authorities.

The estimated 300 people in attendance were but a fraction of the participation seen at immigration-rights rallies in years past.

“I’m very disappointed,” said the Rev. Robert Beirne, a Roman Catholic priest at St. Anthony’s in Providence. “Two years ago, there were tens of thousands of people who were proud to be here. Look at this turnout. I think people are afraid.”

In 2006, as many as 20,000 people participated at a State House rally designed to showcase the positive social and economic contributions of immigrants on International Workers’ Day. By last year, the number of supporters at a similar rally had dwindled to an estimated 500 to 700, following a raid two months earlier on a New Bedford factory, when 361 workers suspected of being in the country illegally were detained by federal officials.

Yesterday, dozens of people in the crowd wore stickers: “No human being is illegal,” and, in Spanish, “Zona libre de migra,” or “Border cop free zone.” One supporter held a sign: “Stop the abuse of immigrant workers.”

“We are here to send a clear message that no person is illegal,” said Ivette Luna, lead organizer with Ocean State Action, a social-justice advocacy group, as she addressed the crowd from the marble steps of the State House. “We are here to ask our elected officials to overturn the governor’s executive order, which foments discrimination and violates our human rights.”

A few minutes later, the crowd began chanting, alternating between Spanish and English.

“El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido! The people, united, will never be defeated!”

“We are here. We work, we pay taxes. And we deserve respect,” said Juan Garcia, an organizer with the Immigrants in Action Committee, which planned the event with a network of groups including Ocean State Action; the International Institute; the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy; Labor Force; the Guatemalan-American Alliance; and local unions.

A group of about 10 young people wearing bright yellow shirts said they were members of PRYSM, the Providence Youth Student Movement. Their families came from Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines, and they said they had come to show their support for the immigrant community.

“I have a lot of family members who have been deported to Cambodia and Thailand,” said Tary Sann, 18, who said she was born in the United States. “The executive order really hurt me. It’s a bad bill and it’s something we should all be against.”

Police Chief Dean M. Esserman, who publicly disagreed with Carcieri’s executive order and said the police should not be put in the position of investigating the immigration status of people they have arrested, attended the rally. He stood off to one side of the marble steps with other police officials and said he was surprised by the relatively low turnout.

“I am not here for political reasons. I am here for police reasons,” Esserman told a reporter. “I always come to this. And I’ll be here tomorrow, for another rally.”

Maria Hernandez made the trip from Warwick and sang along as organizers led a series of folk songs.

“I want to remind everyone that this is a state made up basically by immigrants and the relatives of immigrants,” said Hernandez, who moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic 22 years ago. “The grandparents of our own governor came from Italy to build a better life for themselves.”

The governor’s executive order also requires the state and its vendors to verify the legal status of prospective employees. And this week, the House approved a bill requiring private employers to electronically verify the citizenship of new hires.

Father Beirne criticized the governor’s order.

“Racism and prejudice exist everywhere, in every culture in the world,” Father Beirne said. “But when you have a law or executive order like this one, it just seems to unleash the worst in all of us.”

jjordan@projo.com