Waukegan's Immigration battle of boycotts
Activists take immigration issue to businesses

BY BOB SUSNJARA
bsusnjara@dailyherald.com
Posted Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Money is the tool being used by opposing sides of the illegal immigration issue in Waukegan.

Hispanic activists continued to travel the city Wednesday asking business owners to place signs in their windows against a plan for city police to acquire federal deportation powers. The activists last week started calling for illegal immigrants to boycott businesses without the signs.

In a counter-move, Americans for Legal Immigration plan to stage a "shop in Waukegan" effort Sunday and boycott businesses displaying the signs distributed by the Hispanic activists.

All the rhetoric is leading up to a Waukegan city council meeting Monday night. That's when aldermen intend to take a formal vote on whether to let police submit an application for the special power to enforce federal immigration laws.

Lilia Paredes, vice president of the Chicago metropolitan chapter of Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, said her group and others will continue pressuring the city with boycotts and other economic-driven actions if the immigration enforcement idea isn't scrapped.



"This is going to be an arduous battle, but we're ready for it," Paredes said.

William Gheen, a spokesman for the Raleigh, N.C.-based Americans for Legal Immigration, contends most U.S. citizens want local police to have deportation powers.

Gheen said his group will try to thwart the Hispanic organizations backing the illegal immigrants by leading a day of shopping in Waukegan. It starts noon Sunday outside city hall, 100 N. Martin Luther King Drive.

"Chicago is the next Los Angeles," Gheen said. "Chicago is invasion central. You have a very, very serious problem with illegal immigration in Chicago."

Emma Lozano, a leader in the Centro Sin Fronteras organization that's involved in local immigration issues, said more than 150 stores and restaurants have displayed the placards against the Waukegan police plan.

Lozano and Paredes contend the boycott appears to be an early success and aren't worried about the plans by Americans for Legal Immigration. They say some businesses that initially declined the signs are now asking for them.

But Gheen said he doesn't think the Hispanic activists' Waukegan effort will go far. He said similar boycotts flopped in the Southwest.

If Waukegan gains approval from the Department of Homeland Security, the special federal program would allow police to identify, process and detain immigration offenders they encounter on the job. Mayor Richard Hyde said it might take up to a year for the city to receive federal permission, with rejection a possibility.

Waukegan's proposal was the subject of a town-hall meeting last month that drew about 1,500 mostly Hispanic spectators to Holy Family Catholic Church. Another 5,000 people stood outside because of fire code regulations. Hyde attended the meeting an in effort to ease tensions in the Hispanic community.

He told the crowd Waukegan won't participate in or condone raids on employers or community institutions. He said police would use the special deportation authority only in the effort to prosecute suspects in felonies, such as homicide, rape and child abuse.

Lozano said there is no reason to trust Waukegan police based on its past treatment of Hispanics. She said she also doubts Hyde's commitments would pass muster with federal officials, which is another reason she contends the police shouldn't seek deportation powers.

"You're not going to be flexible with Homeland Security," Lozano said. "You have no choice. You have to go by their rules."

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