http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... %2C00.html

Militia shutting gate after 40m Latinos bolted
Robert Lusetich, Los Angeles correspondent
May 01, 2006
GUILLERMO is a pleasant young man who has so impressed his Armenian boss that he allows the Mexican immigrant to run his Los Angeles restaurant.
Tomorrow the restaurant will be closed; not because either Guillermo or his employer believe in the national immigration boycott that threatens to shut down major US cities, but because they are both afraid of staying open.

"I want to work. That's why I came to this country, to have a chance to make a good life, but tomorrow, if people see us open, they know there are Mexicans here, maybe bad things will happen," said Guillermo.

What Guillermo doesn't talk about - and what few ask about - is that, like at least 11 million others, he is living in the US illegally. They are the figurative elephant sitting in the middle of the American room. If not in the room, then out in the garden, mowing the lawn, or chasing children around the house while both parents go to work to pay off million-dollar mortgages.

In LA alone, perhaps a million people will stay home from work and school tomorrow, hoping to prove the value of Latino immigrants to the economy. Many are expected to take to the streets in a repeat of the huge demonstrations in April in response to Republican attempts to crack down on illegal immigration.

Protests are planned in 68 cities across 23 states, while in Mexico and other Latin American countries, people have been urged to boycott "gringo" products, such as McDonald's.

For Bruce Appledon, seeing a million people "marching under the Mexican flag" in the city he was born in six decades ago, is galling. "If they love Mexico so much, why don't they go back there?" he says.

The recent refuelling of the immigration debate - which last raged a decade ago in California, the biggest Latino state in the US - has angered him so much that he is thinking about joining an audacious attempt to build a fence between the US and Mexico. The Minutemen Project, which deliberately evokes memories of the Revolutionary War and enlists volunteers to patrol the US border, has announced that it will proceed with building the fence on huge tracts of private property in Arizona.

"The existing border crisis is a dereliction of duty by those entrusted with American security and sovereignty, leaving America vulnerable," Minutemen president Chris Simcox said.

In 1980, there were 14 million Latinos - mostly Mexicans - in the US. Today there are almost 40 million. By 2050, it is estimated that 100 million Americans will be Latino.

Activist Jorge Rodriguez claimed Latinos would "close down" cities such as LA, Chicago, New York and Phoenix tomorrow as part of the campaign to gain full amnesty and legalisation for illegals.

While that is unlikely to happen, neither is it likely a hardline bill that passed the House of Representatives in December - making it a felony to be in the US without papers - would make it through the Senate, particularly as President George W. Bush is personally lobbying for a compromise proposal, such as a guest-worker program.

Immigration is a sensitive subject for many Latinos because they or their parents or friends or relatives came to the US illegally, and the planned protests are controversial within the Hispanic community.

Lupe Moreno, a 48-year-old social worker who is an American citizen, told The Los Angeles Times that not only would she not participate, but also she would make her own political statement by buying a $US1000 ($1300) big-screen television to "support the US economy as a proud Latino American".