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Immigrant march slated for Orlando
Victor Manuel Ramos
Sentinel Staff Writer

April 30, 2006

Immigrants are boarding buses in Miami. Farm and construction workers are hopping into their vans and trucks in Southwest Florida.

Others are skipping a day's work in the citrus groves of Polk County, meeting in parking lots and carpooling through morning rush hour.

Many more are coming on their own to march in Orlando on Monday for what organizers are hoping will be an unprecedented show of support in Central Florida for legislation that would allow most illegal immigrants to stay in the country and apply for legal residence.

They aim to form a peaceful river of immigrants and supporters -- maybe even tens of thousands from throughout the state -- that will flood city streets between noon and 4 p.m.

"We are targeting a broad, diverse group of people to also join us," said Jeannie Economos, an activist of Greek heritage who works with the Farmworker Association of Florida. "This is not just about Mexicans or just about Hispanics. This is an issue that affects all ethnic groups, including the white dominant part of society."

It's unclear, though, whether the loose network of advocacy organizations, union groups, religious institutions and businesses supporting the day's actions have formed a powerful or consistent enough message to rally such an impressive crowd. But either way, the rally is expected to clog traffic and alter what would have been just another workday in downtown Orlando.

Organizers in a coalition led by the farmworkers group and the Association of Communities for Reform Now, or ACORN, are calling Monday's event "A Day Without an Immigrant."

Their challenge is to give illegal immigrants and their supporters the confidence and determination to sidestep work for a day and send a strong message to Congress on how to deal with the estimated 11 million to 12.5 million undocumented workers in the nation.

According to the most recent estimates, released last week by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, Florida remains third in the country for the number of illegal immigrants, with 800,000 to 950,000 without valid papers or holding expired visas.

Those immigrants, too, should have the right to free speech and to protest without fear of intimidation, according to Hispanic attorneys, evangelical pastors and community leaders who joined advocacy group Latino Leadership, another coalition member, at a Friday news conference. They were reacting to numerous reports of immigration detentions during the past few weeks.

"There is a document called the U.S. Constitution" that guarantees "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for everyone, said attorney Luis Gomez, citing the history of the United States as a country that embraces immigrants. "Somewhere along the line, those things are being left behind, and it's shameful."

But as the march takes shape, a counterdemonstration is being organized to promote a much different message. The Rev. John Butler Book and other like-minded citizens plan to square off with the marchers Monday -- thinking the U.S. has an urgent need to secure its border with Mexico and rein in the millions of illegal immigrants.

"This isn't about race; this is a national-security issue," Book said. "Tell me what nation in the world would let in 11 million illegal aliens and then give them free health care, free education and drivers licenses?"

Book said he thinks if Congress doesn't act now and seal the border, "We will lose this country."

Scope of rally unclear

The idea of what immigrant advocates in Florida and elsewhere want to see happen Monday was first featured in a movie: A Day Without a Mexican. The 2004 film depicts one day when people in a large U.S. city wake up to find things eerily quiet because all immigrants are gone. In the film, people who had taken those immigrants for granted beg for them to return.

Except that was fiction.

Reality is proving much more complicated. As Monday nears and marches, rallies and other events are planned across the country, no one really knows whether advocates will be able to pull off massive demonstrations.

For the statewide rally in Orlando, projections vary from just over the 3,000 to 5,000 who attended an earlier protest here, to an official prediction of about 10,000, to a more ambitious goal of reaching the 75,000-plus who attended an earlier statewide rally. Some groups that were not affiliated with the rally's coalition speculated that as many as 200,000 people could show up, but organizers said that is very unlikely.

Even in cases in which immigrants are willing to protest, they may face other obstacles in getting here.

Marcos Crisanto, a farmworkers activist, said the protest is sure to draw at least 1,000 from the Pierson area alone. The number isn't higher, he said, because most workers don't have a drivers license and have no form of transportation to get to downtown Orlando.

Because of its central location, Orlando was picked earlier this month as the site for Florida's rally. But logistical challenges, the difficulty of holding a massive event on a regular workday and illegal immigrants' fears of being seen in public have created uncertainty about its size.

Several groups have since broken from the main rally, calling for local events in Homestead, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Pierce, Sarasota and Tampa.

Even in Orlando, advocacy organizations in the coalition of about 30 groups each pitched the Monday event differently. Some asked people to stay home from work and not buy anything May 1 -- joining calls for an economic boycott from some national groups. But the official message from organizers was that they were just holding a march and not asking people to risk losing their jobs.

Latino Leadership, the best-known Hispanic advocacy group in Orlando, distributed letters for parents to send to their schools so they could keep children out of the classrooms. But the National Council of La Raza, of which Latino Leadership is an affiliate, said it could not support children skipping classes. Hispanic business groups were skeptical of boycott tactics that could hurt small businesses.

Even the Roman Catholic Church, a steady member of Orlando's and other national immigrant-advocacy coalitions, said it supported immigrant rights but not boycotts and school walkouts. The Catholic Diocese of Orlando is holding a noon mass Monday "in solidarity with all undocumented immigrants" as the rally gets started nearby.

Some are fearful

Rumors of immigration sweeps and detentions throughout Florida are adding a layer of fear that may make it even more challenging for advocates to energize their base.

Those fears were sparked in part by a statewide operation a week before the rally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials that netted 183 illegal immigrants, including a couple of dozen with serious criminal offenses.

ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said the statewide "Operation Phoenix" targeted fugitives and other immigration violators while denying that the agency conducts random sweeps.

But people were calling live shows on Spanish-language radio here and in South Florida to give locations where officers were detaining immigrants.

From those unconfirmed accounts, immigration agents seemed to be everywhere: at intersections along John Young Parkway, roaming the shopping plazas in Apopka and nurseries in Sorrento, visiting Mexican restaurants in southeast Orlando or even dragging people out of their homes in front of their children.

"The reports of raids at supermarkets, work sites and churches have been a bit distracting from the May 1 event, and we don't know what repercussions they may have," said Maria Rodriguez, who directs the statewide Florida Immigrant Coalition that represents more than 50 immigrant groups supporting the rally.

Jose Vargas, a DeLand construction worker, said people are not only afraid of losing their jobs, they also fear deportation. But that won't stop him.

"We have to go and support this," Vargas, 25, said.

Closed for day

Despite those challenges, the Hispanic community in Central Florida seemed acutely aware of Monday's march, and many business owners were reporting that they would treat the day almost as a holiday.

The local owners of Bravo Supermarket, a Hispanic-owned franchise from New York City that has opened four supermarkets in the Orlando area, expect to lose $100,000 or more in sales because they are closing Monday.

Jose Batista, a legal Dominican immigrant, said he could not think only about the bottom line when such a critical community issue is at stake.

"No one told me I had to close," said Batista, 37, who owns the Bravo Supermarket in Apopka. "But we are Latinos, and our customers are Latinos and many of them need work permits. They support me as a businessman, so I have to support the community."

In the end, even non-Hispanic fernery owners in Volusia County admit there isn't much they can do if their employees protest.

"Right now, I don't want to see anyone go anywhere," said Erik Hagstrom, whose family owns Albin Hagstrom & Son Inc., one of Pierson's largest ferneries, with 200 employees. "[But] we depend upon the immigrant labor."

Among the mostly Mexican immigrants in construction, some employers said not only are they skipping work Monday, they are providing free transportation to the rally.

Astatula resident Pedro Lopez, a framing contractor who became a legal resident in the 1986 immigration amnesty, said he will let his workers free that day and plans to attend the rally with his wife and two daughters.

"People should be allowed to work and better themselves," said Lopez, 46. "I have raised many house frames in Florida since I was legally admitted here. I am not tearing anything down, but building up. So, what was the harm in giving me the papers?"

Tanya Perez-Brennan and Rich McKay of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Victor Manuel Ramos can be reached at vramos@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6186.