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'A day without an immigrant' movement impacts Batesville
By Jon Trobaugh, Guard Staff Writer
Published Friday April 28, 2006

Over 7 million people, including many in Batesville, may not come to work Monday as part of a national immigration protest.

“We want to show our power; we want to send a wave of passion across the country,” said Siuhin Lee, national coordinator for the Immigrant Solidarity Network, one of several activist groups involved in the scheduled protest. “For the world, this will be the dawn of a new movement, a civil rights movement.”

The ISN’s “dawn” could begin Monday morning as thousands of immigrants and their supporters take the day off from work, keep their children home from school and refrain from buying, selling or consuming any American product. The protesters’ actions are meant to draw attention to what they say is unfair and unethical treatment of immigrant workers (illegal and otherwise) and the workers’ contributions to the American economy.

Groups supporting the actions are also calling for the legalization of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States.

“No work, no school, no buying and no selling. We are asking immigrants not to go to work and to close down their shops to show their support,” Lee said. “We would prefer them to not just walk off work, but to ask for the day off. But mostly, we are asking them to boycott.”

In addition to boycotting, protesters plan to wear white clothing and stage rallies around “symbols of economic trade” in their communities. Immigrant college and university students are also encouraged to stay home.

The proposed boycott, nicknamed “a day without an immigrant” after a recent motion picture, is the latest installment in a series of mass protests geared to influence policy makers in Washington D.C. According to Lee and other organizers, the aim of the strike is to show the country the economic reality of deporting 12 million workers/consumers. More militant activists say they hope the protests and walk-outs “shut down” or “close” major U.S. cities such as Chicago and New York.

So far, more than 100 formal protests, vigils, etc. are scheduled around the country Monday.

While the local economic impact of a protest remains to be seen, one Batesville plant with a large population of Hispanic workers will be closed Monday due to what its spokesman called a previously-scheduled “down” day.

Patrick Johnston, public relations officer for Townsend, told the Guard many of his company’s processing plants would be closed Monday because of shifting production schedules, and not to head off any economic downfalls of a Hispanic worker strike.

“We have schedules that would cause our plants to be closed on Monday,” Johnston said. “Without going into detail, this has to do with when we want to bring birds (chickens) into our plants, and how many birds are in the field waiting to be processed.”

Not so, according to “Sancho,” a Hispanic living in Batesville and working at Townsend who says the plant closed for a different reason. Sancho, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Guard he and fellow workers were informed (by signage) the plant would be closed Monday for “maintenance.”

Though Johnston avoided commenting specifically about the May 1 protests, he did say immigration is a “major concern” of Townsend, adding immigration reform was needed to aid not only the immigrants themselves but companies with significant immigrant workforces as well.

According to Johnston, 35 to 40 percent of the Batesville plant’s workforce is Hispanic.

“Well, there is never a situation when we are knowingly employing someone who cannot legally work in this country. We follow those (state and federal) requirements,” he added.

While no formal protest is set for the Batesville area, the Guard has learned several “ad hoc” groups spread news of the strike by word of mouth and other means. Sancho said he and his friends will participate in the boycott even though his place of work is already closed by not buying anything.

“Well, it’s a shame it has got to this point; there are a lot of big misunderstandings on both sides of the issue,” said Barry Sellers, president of the Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce. “We are a country of immigrants, but until those laws are changed you have to enforce them.

“For Batesville, our best case scenario is for everyone to work together and for things to run smoothly, the worst case scenario is that we all choose not to work together which could be detrimental to the economy and the community.”

Sellers added he hopes the people of Batesville can work together on the issue of immigration, so that business owners, workers and citizens are all not harmed.

“I’ve seen strikes that hurt the strikers more than anyone else,” he said.

And indeed some Latino leaders have expressed concern about the walkouts, saying they could stir up anti-immigrant sentiment and cause many Hispanics to lose their jobs.

“People need to channel their energies in a positive direction,” Juan Carlos Ruiz, of the National Capital Immigration Coalition recently told Time Magazine. “If other groups decide they want to do a boycott, we respect their strategy, but it is not one we chose.”

“Of course, we don’t want people to lose their jobs,” Lee said, admitting his group had no strike fund to help protesters who may lose their jobs. “Like with any struggle, some of us are going to suffer. But we want everyone to understand all of us exploit the benefits of immigrant labor.”

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent research group in Washington D.C., the federal government’s estimate that 12 million of the 34 million foreign-born people in the United States entered the country illegally is inaccurate.

“A lot of people think there is a high undercount with that number, it could be low by a million or so,” John Keeley, the group’s director of communications, told the Guard.

“Either way, our research shows about 7 million of illegals are working, but they are disproportionately located at the bottom of the labor sector.”

Keeley said of those 7 million, about half work “on the books” and pay federal taxes.

“The problem is our government does not make the poor pay much in taxes, so while we’ve estimated they (illegal immigrants) are generating at the federal level upwards of $16 billion, they use about $26 billion in federal welfare (and other) programs. That is a net deficit of $10 billion a year to the American taxpayer.”

Calls to the U.S. Office of Immigration and Naturalization and the U.S. Census Bureau regarding immigration statistics were not returned by press time. However, it should be noted the CIS’s deficit represents less than 1 percent of the federal budget according to www.whitehouse.gov.

Still, Lee, who is Chinese-American, said the protests were important to “ensure global justice” and to secure workers’ rights and those of the oppressed.

“A lot of work, little pay and our employers don’t listen to us. They say there are a hundred other people (willing) to do our job,” Sancho said about the treatment of immigrant workers in the U.S. “We just want someone to listen to us.”

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