Civil rights and immigration activists have already started gearing up for the May 1 immigration reform march to be held in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the Full Rights Coalition, and other civic, religious and community leaders are gathering Thursday afternoon to encourage participation in the upcoming demonstration, which in Los Angeles is expected to attract more than 100,000 protesters, according to the L.A Times.

Other groups, like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (CHIRLA), are getting their members together Thursday at 4 p.m. to prepare T-shirts, banners and posters for Saturday’s rally. 

Villaraigosa and his crew immigration rights crew will also be discussing their concerns over the new Arizona immigration law that allows police officers to demand papers from people they suspect of being illegal immigrants. Many have accussed the law of legitimizing racial profiling.

The Arizona law is expected to push more people to the May 1 rallies than previously anticipated; the rallies will take place across the nation and have been a ritual since 2006. 

In advance of the planned rallies, Chief of Police Charlie Beck will be talking about the department’s “posture for May Day 2010” at the Civic Center Thursday. And in response to the Arizona immigration law, Beck will review the Special Order 40, which prohibits police officers from “initiat(ing) police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person.”

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