http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=258193

How will boycott in Carpentersville go over?
Carpentersville groups at odds over the effect of act

BY LARISSA CHINWAH AND EMILY KRONE
Daily Herald Staff Writers
Posted Saturday, December 09, 2006



A Latino group opposed to Carpentersville police enforcing federal immigration laws is planning to take its boycott of local businesses to the streets today.

But some on both sides of the debate are not certain how effective the boycott will be.

The Illinois Alliance for Legal Immigration will begin promoting an indefinite boycott of all businesses, hoping to stop the village from acting as local immigration police.

The founder of the Illinois Alliance for Legal Immigration, Fernando Leyva, said local police targeting immigrant neighborhoods in search of illegal immigrants would be more harmful than the village's proposal to fine businesses that hire and landlords who rent to illegal immigrants.

The village board Tuesday formally asked for federal aid under the so-called "287 (g)" program, which enables towns and states to work with the federal government to enforce immigration laws.

"The 287 (g) training is worse than the actual ordinance because 287 (g) is an actual law," said Leyva, a West Dundee resident. "This will split up more families because people will be detained and reported."

While he agrees illegal immigration is a problem, Leyva said federal reform is inevitable - and will better serve all the people of Carpentersville, a village of 35,000 with a Latino population of at least 40 percent. Authorizing local police to take federal matters into their own hands would create fear and tension, and make matters worse, he said.

Beginning today, Leyva and about 14 members of the Illinois Alliance will cease supporting local businesses until the village's request for training is withdrawn - and they plan to recruit as many as they can to join them.

"It has to be done to all businesses so no one can accuse us of anything like being racist," said Leyva, a loan originator. "That's fair. The resolution effects everyone in Carpentersville, so the boycott is for all of Carpentersville."

But others warned the boycott would punish businesses.

"I don't think this is the right way to do it," Village President Bill Sarto said. "There are better ways to make a point than to boycott business owners. It is targeting the wrong people. ... It is not in the best interest of business owners or the residents in Carpentersville."

Bob Sperlazzo, chairman of the Fox Valley Citizens for Legal Immigration and a technical writer, said the proposed boycott will be counterproductive.

"All it would do is polarize people and hurt the village," said Sperlazzo, who lives in Carpentersville. "It would hurt the very people they say they want to help. It would hurt some of the businesses that support his group."

The outcome of these sorts of boycotts can be the opposite of what organizers intended, Sperlazzo warned.

He cited the example of Escondido, Calif., where a boycott targeted a gas station owner who supported a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Instead, supporters of the illegal immigration ordinance traveled from across the county to patronize the gas station and defeat the boycott.

But a crackdown will repel, not attract, people to Carpentersville, Leyva said. If the village isolates the Latino community, which either one of its crackdown plans would surely do, Leyva said, immigrants both legal and illegal will leave town - in droves.

The boycott, he said, would show the effects of that exodus, without permanent damage.

"If the 287 (g) training goes through, we want to show that this is what the economy would be like in Carpentersville because people would leave," Leyva said. "Sure, it would cause panic now. But it would be worse later on and cause more panic because the effects would be irreversible once the program is in place."

Although the Illinois Alliance is the first group to carry out a boycott in Carpentersville, it is not the first to consider action.

Leaders of the Carpentersville Community Alliance, the first group to form in opposition to the proposed ordinance cracking down on illegal immigrants, discussed employing similar action but put the plans on hold, citing bad timing.

"We need to do things positively until we can show with facts that this is ridiculous," said Silvia Realzola, president of the Carpentersville Community Alliance. "If we do a boycott, it is going to be effective, but who is it going to affect? It is going to make it hard on the business owners and the residents."

Some business owners Friday said the boycott would hurt business.

"Business is already bad. Business is already slow," said Rosa Figueroa, a manager of La Illusion in Carpentersville. "If this happens, things are just going to get worse."

A village-wide boycott is a blunt instrument, but a narrower boycott could be effective, said Jorge Chappa, director of the Center for Democracy in an Multiracial Society at University of Illinois.

Paradoxically, a boycott of businesses that hire illegal immigrants - a group likely to oppose any Carpentersville crackdowns - could help advance the anti-ordinance cause, Chappa said.

"It might work, to really target businesses that aren't living up to their civic responsibility," Chappa said. "It would be a good chance to get businesses to say, 'We really need these workers, and let's get these people here in a way that's sane and legal.