http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 381567.htm

Posted on Wed, Apr. 19, 2006


Proposed work boycott splits immigration activists

BY FRANK JAMES
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - Just weeks after huge pro-immigration marches across the nation to protest congressional proposals to get tough on illegal immigrants, a split has developed in the movement over whether to embrace a planned May 1 work and school boycott by undocumented workers and their supporters.

Activists in Chicago, where a large demonstration is planned that day, said Wednesday they aren't joining the call for a boycott, and leaders of several immigrant-advocacy groups at a news conference in Washington said they opposed the plan as well.

The advocates in Washington said the timing for a boycott is wrong since it is scheduled to take place shortly after Congress returns from its spring recess. Senate leaders plan to resume work on immigration-reform legislation upon their return, having failed to pass legislation before their break.

At the Washington news conference, concern was apparent that a boycott in which millions of immigrant workers stay away from their jobs could trigger an anti-immigrant backlash. That could destroy any slim chance that the immigrant groups, already facing an uphill fight, might win approval in an election year for the kind of legislation they want that would give millions of those here illegally a path to citizenship.

Straining to show their disagreement over the idea of a May 1 boycott without seeming to criticize the boycott's proponents, the immigration advocates said there was unity in the movement's overall goals despite disagreements over tactics.

"We believe that the boycott and the strike is a legitimate tool that we need to utilize and we support it, but not right now because we believe right now the ball is in the hands of the Senate," said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland.

His group helped organize the April 10 march in Washington that drew between 100,000 and 200,000 people to the National Mall.

Advocates in Chicago, where police estimated that 100,000 demonstrated in March, said they were discouraging any boycott May 1 and want workers to seek employers' permission to miss work in order to attend the march.

At a news conference in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, activist Martin Unzueta said groups have been distributing letters for workers to present their bosses, politely asking for the day off.

Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, echoed that approach at the Washington news conference.

"We're encouraging people to arrange their schedules so they can come to the march in the afternoon and participate to lift up the contribution of immigrant workers," Hoyt said.

Still, the idea of a May 1 boycott, which supporters have called a "Day Without Immigrants," has fired the imagination of many undocumented immigrants and their supporters.

The boycott, whose supporters hope will also lead to illegal immigrants and their supporters not spending money that day, has been widely discussed in the Spanish-language media and Latino communities. Its supporters say the idea has such momentum that it would be impossible to stop.

"May 1 is a decentralized action that has really taken on a life of its own," said Carlos Alvarez, a spokesman with the Los Angeles chapter of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), which has contributed grassroots organizing to the immigration demonstrations.

At a news conference, Chicago organizers said that while they rejected calls for a boycott, they did not oppose that tactic in general.

Jorge Mujica, a journalist and member of the March 10 Movement organizing committee, said organizers want to save that tactic as a "last resort" if Congress is close to passing a final immigration bill that does not provide a clear path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants.

In that scenario, Chicago organizers said they might call for a lengthy general strike or boycott, not just a one-day event.

Jaime Contreras, chairman of the National Capital Immigrant Coalition, said organizers in the Washington metropolitan area were asking those wishing to participate on May 1 to attend events planned for after work and school hours.

"You're not always going to have agreement in a movement," he said. "Malcolm X and Martin Luther King never agreed until the end, right?

"You're always going to have the same thing here . . . ," he said. "We want to make sure that we have unity at least around real immigration reform and (against) HR 4437," he said, referring to legislation approved by the House in December.

Critics say that legislation, which focuses on immigration enforcement, would make undocumented immigrants felons for the fact that they're living in the United States. It would also increase border enforcement with construction of a 700-mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border and step up work site crackdowns.

Immigrant advocates have been lobbying hard to keep the Senate from passing a bill as draconian as they view the House-passed measure. They also are seeking language in a Senate version that would provide a path to legalization and eventual citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Opponents of such legalization have disparaged such a step as an amnesty, a reward for people who broke the law by illegally crossing the U.S. border and jumped ahead of those who have been waiting to enter the U.S. legally

A work and school boycott might not only alienate members of Congress but many Americans, suggested Angela Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

"It is critical for us as we move forward that we're also embraced by the American public," Salas said.

Organizers of the large immigration marches that have taken place nationally in recent weeks have been sensitive to the potential for backlash.

The first large marches, where many marchers waved Mexican and other Latin American flags, drew criticisms that illegal immigrants weren't sufficiently loyal to the U.S. The next marches featured many more U.S. flags and many fewer Latin American ones.