SEIU Health Care Chair: 300K To 400K Protesters In Puerto Rico Today

As we reported earlier, massive protests were expected in Puerto Rico today against the government's plans for thousands upon thousands of layoffs of public employees. Unemployment in Puerto Rico is already at 15 percent, and the layoffs are meant to help reduce a $3.2 billion deficit. But the people are not happy about it.

I spoke on the phone earlier this afternoon with Dennis Rivera, a Puerto Rico native who chairs SEIU's health care efforts and returned to the island for today's protests. He called the protests "unbelievable," "amazing" and insisted that there were "300,000 to 400,000 people -- if not more." He said thousands of school buses brought Puerto Ricans to San Juan from all over the island, and that they then marched from eight or nine different locations in San Juan.

Rivera said he was in Cape Town when Nelson Mandela was released from prison on Feb. 11, 1990 -- and that the crowd in Puerto Rico today was "easily, without a doubt," just as big.

Earlier, the Puerto Rican government had threatened protesters with charges of terrorism. But Rivera told me that the government "backed off."

"Clearly, they stepped back for today," Rivera said. "What they basically said is, 'If you come to the protests, you are a terrorist and we can jail you.'"

That acted as a big deterrent, Rivera said, but the authorities don't appear to have followed up on that threat.

So what now? Rivera said SEIU has made a formal request to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder about the planned layoffs in Puerto Rico.

"What we expect is that this is going to bring the issue up to the American people," Rivera said. "And the American people have to make a judgment call about what they want to do."