"I'm an immigrant and I'm not afraid!"

These words and many other chants shouted Saturday afternoon resonated with the crowd of a few hundred Los Angeles residents who gathered at City Hall in downtown to raise support for immigration reform and end deportations.

The Free LA: No More ICE event was one of 10 similar rallies staged in Southern California, which were all part of about 70 #Not1More demonstrations held across the nation.

"America was founded as the land of immigrants and I think it's time for the rest of the nation to catch up," said Denise Panaligan, a UCLA student and member of the Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights through Education organization.

When Panaligan announced her immigrant status to the crowd, it was met with thunderous applause. She continued to tell the audience that she arrived in the U.S. from the Philippines when she was 9 years old and that America has become her only home.

Born in the Central Visays region of the Philippines, Panaligan expressed her devastation after losing her hometown after Typhoon Haiyan swept through the region last year, leaving a country in shambles and displacing millions of people without a home.

"Now I have no home to go back to," Panaligan lamented. "And I think my story is resonate with the stories of thousands of Filipinos and all of our stories here today. We are a people that deserve so much better than what America, what society, what their government is giving us. We are here to stand in solidarity with all of you."

While the nationwide rallies and protests saw most of its support from the Hispanic community, many Asian American and Filipino American groups including ASPIRE and the Pilipino Workers Center came out to support the cause as many Asian immigrants also find themselves facing deportation and separation from their families.

"Seeing all of you here is so beautiful because immigration is beautiful and the diversity here, it just makes our community stronger," she said. "In the 1960s, with the United Farm Workers movement, Latino, Filipino and Japanese farm workers came together because they believed that they are fighting for their human rights indignities."

Many L.A. civil and human rights organizations attended Saturday's demonstration including ASPIRE, Clean Car Wash Campaign, Dream Team Los Angeles, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Los Angeles Immigrant Youth Coalition and the Pilipino Workers Center.

Alessandro Negrete, a California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance representative, said all the different groups came together naturally because they're all L.A. based groups advocating for similar causes.

"We just thought it was a natural thing to happen organically," Negrete said, adding, "where since we're all L.A. based organizations, we just figured why not do something together."

Panaligan was one of the many speakers to who voiced their concerns and frustrations with President Barack Obama's deportation policy.

Protesters nationwide demanded better treatment of undocumented immigrants from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, called on President Obama to halt deportations through an executive order and insisted that comprehensive immigration reform be put back on the table despite Speaker of the House John Boehner's refusal of passing any reform bill this year.

Negrete said Los Angeles is home to the largest amount of undocumented immigrants in the nation and that the city should end the 287(g) Program, an initiative that allows federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to turn over all undocumented immigrants that have been arrested to ICE.

"The first step to immigration reform and administrative relief is ending deportations," Negrete said.

The president said in a 2011 speech in El Paso, Texas that his administration is only concerned with catching undocumented immigrants that have criminal records and have a history of violence, but most advocacy groups are arguing the opposite.

According to an Immigration Policy Center report, ICE deported 368,644 undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2013 and one-in-five of those deportees were defined as a person "convicted of an 'aggravated felony,' or two or more felonies."

ICE's designation of a person convicted of aggravated felony falls in its Level 1 category, while Level 2 represents a person "convicted of a felony, or three or more misdemeanors" and a person "convicted of no more than two misdemeanors" qualifies as Level 3.

The statistics "illustrate the point that even the highest-priority immigrants on ICE's list are not necessarily violent or dangerous," according to the report. "But even if we overlook this fact for the sake of argument, last year's deportation statistics make clear that even 'Level 1' deportees make up a minority of the immigrants whom ICE removed from the country."

According to the report, the majority of removals that took place near the border were of Level 3 individuals at 28 percent, however, with 40 percent, the majority of ICE's removals taking place further inside the U.S. were Level 1s.

UCLA graduate student and DTLA member Cristina Echeverria led the crowd in series of chants while several people marched in a circle in front of City Hall.

"Liberation not deportation!" Echeverria shouted to get the demonstration going, followed by "No papers no fear!"

Echeverria said that more than 1,000 individuals are deported daily in the U.S. and more than 1,000 families have been separated.

"We all know that Obama does not need to wait for Congress, he has now separated over two million families through his deportation quotas and policy," she said during her opening remarks. "He can stop doing so immediately through using his executive power granting administrative relief to all undocumented immigrants."

Musical and dance acts also accompanied Saturday's demonstration. The Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc group performed a lively dance number during the middle of the rally and the band Jornaleros Del Norte closed out the event with a series of their songs.

During the Danza performance, its leader Pastel spoke to the crowd about the meaning of "La Raza," commonly known as a Hispanic and Latino movement originating in Southern California before spreading into major cities nationwide.

"La Raza are the people that say 'enough is enough,'" Pastel exclaimed. He said that La Raza is a title that belongs to all the civil rights groups and its members. "That is La Raza!"

Los Angeles Police Sgt. James Baker along with three other uniformed officers were placed on duty near the event. Baker said that it's his job to organize the protest events with the police department ahead of time.

He said that in the past few months the department has witnessed an increase in immigration reform demonstrations and rallies throughout the city because the lack of action from Congress.

"People see what the federal government's not doing," Baker admitted, adding, "and it's a pre-rehearsal for May Day."

May Day, or the International Workers' Day, is celebrated annually on May 1 where tens of thousands of people march in major cities around the world in commemoration of various labor movements.

Baker said immigration reform and anti-war groups have also used the holiday to march in support of its causes.

"A lot of the immigration groups and other anti-war groups use that day as a worldwide day where all groups come out to have protests," Baker said.

As Echeverria translated, Mariano Hernandez Carecen, a member of the Clean Car Wash Campaign, said in Spanish that he believes ICE and the government's efforts against undocumented immigrants will destroy communities.

"As we allow them to, they will destroy our communities in this way and this is why we need to stand up and continue fighting against that," Carecen said. "It is for this reason that while I can still walk, I will continue to attend these protests, I will continue to attend these actions to show that we are not quiet and we will not accept this."