It is being billed as The Great American Boycott 2006. On Monday, international labour day in the United States, thousands or perhaps millions of people are expected to join in a nationwide boycott to protest against proposals that would toughen existing immigration laws.
Under the slogan ”No work, no school, no sales, no buying”, the boycott will be accompanied by marches and protests across the country. Organisers hope that it will build on the unexpected scale of the anti-immigration reform protest held at the end of March, which saw about half-a-million people take to the streets of Los Angeles and helped push the immigration debate to the top of the political agenda.
Protesters have been galvanised by the passage of a Bill in the House of Representatives in December that focuses on tougher restrictions on illegal immigrants without offering any route to legality.
Monday’s protests will include events in 72 American cities, 25 of them in California, as well as Mexico, where a boycott of US goods and services is planned. Subcomandante Marcos and his Zapatista rebel movement have promised to hold a rally outside the US embassy in Mexico City.
The biggest US demonstrations are expected to take place in New York, Chicago — where estimates suggest that about 300 000 people will turn out — and Los Angeles, where two demonstrations are planned, each of which could attract 500 000 people, according to police estimates.
The existence of two marches in Los Angeles is indicative of the divisions that have arisen in the immigrant rights movement since the unexpected success of protests at the end of March.
Organisers of the first march, scheduled to begin at midday, want protesters to leave their work or school and take part in the demonstrations. Supporters of the second march, which begins at 4pm, are telling protesters to finish work or do a full day at school before joining in.
The first march received the approval of the Democrat-controlled California senate on Thursday, with supporters calling the boycott part of a grand tradition going back to the Boston Tea Party.
”These immigrants are fighting to embrace this nation,” Democratic Senator Richard Alarcon told reporters after the vote. ”What a good time this is when people can express their anger, their frustration, desires, hopes and dreams, all for the purpose of becoming American.”
But Los Angeles’s mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, urged protesters to attend the later demonstration. ”It is very important to keep our kids in school and to make sure they get a good education,” he told a news conference on Thursday. ”After school, they can join in the marches as is their first amendment right.”
His views were echoed by the Roman Catholic Cardinal of Los Angeles, Roger Mahoney. ”Go to work, go to school, and then join thousands of us at a major rally afterward,” he said.
The church, with strong ties to the heavily Catholic Latino community, has found itself at the forefront of the immigration debate. Some of the proposals under consideration by Congress would criminalise those who help undocumented immigrants.
While various compromises have been suggested, with several different versions of the legislation debated, their common points remain toughening border security, possibly including the building of an extended border fence, and the prospect of a route to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the US.
Leaders of Monday’s protest want the issue resolved. ”Congress has had a full week to demonstrate that they were serious when they said they intended to reach agreement,” said Juan Jose Gutierrez, of Latino Movement USA, one of the groups behind the protests. ”They haven’t done that. They’re not really going to fix the broken immigration system.
”Undocumented immigrants in the US are modern-day slaves and nothing more. We don’t want to be slaves any more. We’re sick and tired of it. Ten or 20-million workers staying away from their jobs on Monday … is going to wake up the world.”
A boycott could have a startling effect on the local and the national economy. Organisers of Monday’s protest hope that they can draw attention to the contribution made by legal and illegal immigrants to the life of Los Angeles and other cities. — Guardian Unlimited Â