With a jab at Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton and demands for sweeping changes to immigration laws, more than 500 immigrants and supporters marched through Portland on Sunday in one of several Labor Day weekend events planned across the country.

The march coincided with signs of growing sentiment against undocumented immigrants among some Oregonians and precedes congressional efforts to resolve differences in two starkly different immigration bills in the House and Senate.

The Oregon Republican Party approved a resolution in July to deny citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants and to legal immigrants who are not citizens, an action that probably would require amending the U.S. Constitution.

Saxton has not endorsed the resolution, but he has advocated strict controls on undocumented residents. As the demonstrators passed his campaign office Sunday, marchers stopped to chant, "Saxton, immigrant basher. We'll remember in November."

Felix Schein, Saxton's campaign manager, said later that millions of immigrants come to this country without breaking the rules.

"Let's enforce our immigration laws to ensure those who come here legally are given due process and not circumvented by those who skirt the law," Schein said.

Demonstrators carried signs and wore T-shirts calling for worker solidarity, immigration reform and erasing all borders. Some condemned the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a national group with members in Oregon who have recently begun monitoring day laborers, some of them undocumented, in Cornelius.

Jorge Torres, a member of Voz, a Portland group trying to organize day laborers, told those at the rally that those workers are the ones who "keep houses clean, gardens tended, restaurants open." He said the laborers do "the dirtiest, most dangerous, most difficult jobs," while paying taxes, renting apartments and buying at supermarkets.

"We are in solidarity with you; you are not alone," Torres said of the workers in Cornelius.

After more than an hour of speeches, music and dancing, the group set off down Columbia Street to Second Avenue to Burnside Street and back to the park. As the march got under way, a few flags -- U.S. and Mexico -- appeared. Some carried signs proclaiming, "This is our land also."

There have been similar marches in Portland and Salem this year, some drawing several thousand participants. Sunday's event was peaceful. Three people carrying a cardboard sign reading "No borders, no nation," a slogan of groups favoring a crackdown on undocumented immigrants, took part without incident.

Organizers said a key function of the rally was to collect signatures that will be sent to the Oregon congressional delegation.

Immigration reform remains stalled in Congress, primarily because of disagreement about whether to grant some form of amnesty to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Given the split between the Senate, which favors a provision for temporary workers and a system leading to citizenship, and the House, which wants tougher border controls first, the issue may not be resolved this year.

At the rally, a few signs urged amnesty. But speakers avoided the word, speaking instead of "unconditional legalization for all."

Tom Chamberlain, the head of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said the United States has "a dirty little secret" in that some people gain and keep power by dividing instead of uniting the nation. He said immigration policy is being driven by political and corporate interests.

"That's not the America I love," he said.