Thread: Immigration boycott felt around county

http://www.signonsandiego.com

Immigration boycott felt around county



By Greg Gross
UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM

4:12 p.m. May 1, 2006

SAN DIEGO – A nationwide day of pro-immigration protests Monday intermittently closed the border's busiest crossing point, caused numerous businesses to close their doors, reduced school attendance and turned some predominantly Latino neighborhoods into virtual ghost towns.
The protest was one of many demonstrations and boycotts across the United States intended to show the importance of illegal immigrants – and Mexicans in particular – to the U.S. economy.

It was difficult to immediately determine just how many workers didn't show up, but there were many indicators the number was large.

Traffic was light on the highways and at the border throughout the day, and numerous small and midsize businesses reported they had to close because workers did not show up for work.

Hundreds of farmworkers who labor in nurseries and strawberry fields had the day off Monday. Some worked Sunday to be able to have Monday off, while others chose not go to work. Most are newly arrived in the country, all were undocumented. Some are still in their teens.

On Monday, the men stayed in their camp in the hills east of Carmel Valley, off Black Mountain Road and beside state Route 56, where they live in tents and makeshift huts. They were getting haircuts, doing laundry and listening to music in their cars, activities they usually reserve for a Sunday.

However, Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego Farm Bureau, said their absence did not appear to disrupt the region's agricultural industry.

“I haven't heard a thing that there's an impact from the boycott other than the usual number of workers gone on a Monday,” he said.

At the San Ysidro border crossing, about 20 U.S. immigration officers briefly faced off with 1,000 protesters standing just inside Mexican territory as the protesters tried to blockade northbound traffic around 11:20 a.m.

Vehicles were allowed into the United States from Mexico if they made it through the crowd and were inspected, said Angelica De Cima, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

De Cima said U.S. authorities asked Mexican officials to disperse the crowds in Mexico who blocked the border crossing.

By 3:30 p.m. vehicles heading north were able to access four of the 24 lanes to the Port of Entry, said Lauren Mack, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.

Despite the protesters' blockade, there were no reports of violence or arrests by U.S authorities through the morning and early afternoon, De Cima said.

On the Tijuana side, police arrested at least seven people during the daylong protest. One Tijuana officer was hit in the head when demonstrators started throwing bottles while police tried to arrest one protester; his condition wasn't known.

In San Diego, many taco stands and other restaurants that typically turn a busy breakfast trade were closed.

More than 10 percent of the 152 Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grills in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado were closed and not serving lunch Monday because of staffing shortages, a company spokeswoman said.

Among those closed was the Rubio's in the Hall of Justice building in downtown San Diego.

“We are evaluating it on an hour-to-hour basis,” said Rubio's spokeswoman Linda Duke.

Duke said the stores were being closed because not enough workers were showing up to operate them. She said about 20 stores would be closed for lunch.

“They were proactive, communicating ahead of time to staff. They were hoping they would let us know ahead of time,” Duke said.

At Buenos Dias on Jackson Drive in La Mesa, yellow caution tape was draped around the periphery of the venerable Mexican diner. A handwritten sign posted on the menu board outside said employees had gone to a rally in downtown San Diego.

“I'll lose about $5,000 today,” said owner Jose Uribe, noting that his 10 Latino workers had alerted him last week that they would not be coming in.

Uribe said he couldn't operate the restaurant anyway because his produce and meat suppliers were not making deliveries, in deference to the protest.

However, some other restaurant owners said they expected to pick up business as customers were diverted from closed diners to their outlets.

Brian Stout, owner of Brian's American Eatery on Washington Street in University Heights, said he expected the 25 Latino employees at the restaurant and another diner he operates in downtown San Diego to arrive for work.

“I told them they have a responsibility to do their job and, if they want it, they have to work,” Stout said.

The boycott also affected North County, where several taco shops left signs in their windows telling customers they would be closed.
Alejandro Gonzalez of Vista Catering, who owns a fleet of 17 lunch vans serving Vista, Carlsbad and Encinitas, had only six of his 32 employees show up for work Monday, despite promising them a full day's pay for even a half day of work.

“There's definitely going to be firings,” Gonzalez said outside the Carlsbad hiring hall on El Camino Real.

At the hall, which coordinates the hiring of day laborers, 11 workers showed up. Last Monday, 26 were there trying to get a job.

One of the laborers was a U.S. citizen who turned down a job being offered for $10 an hour. He wanted $14 an hour.

At the Home Depot on El Camino Real at Leucadia Boulevard in Encinitas, a dozen men milled about on the northwest corner of the parking lot at 9:45 a.m. On a typical morning about 35 people show up looking for work, said Francisco Hernandez, a 26-year-old day laborer and a regular at the spot.

As a handful of workers gathered, a man in a white van drove by, yelling, “Go back to Mexico!” and “You are communists!”

Hernandez, who migrated here legally 16 years ago from El Salvador, said he often hears similar comments, along with name-calling.

“It doesn't feel good, but what can we say?” he said.

Hernandez said he was looking for work Monday because he didn't work over the weekend. His father, who works at a golf course, stayed home in support of the boycott.

In Tijuana, meanwhile, a crowd of protesters that gradually grew to about 1,000 people during the morning briefly blockaded the San Ysidro border crossing, normally the world's busiest land port of entry.

The demonstrators, many of them middle-aged women, held signs and banners urging motorists not to cross into San Diego. Some demonstrators spoke of plans to shut down the border for 15 minutes every two hours.

Even before the demonstrators began blocking lanes about 8 a.m., cross-border traffic at San Ysidro was almost non-existent, with just a handful of vehicles in the lanes at a time. A typical Monday morning sees about 200 vehicles per lane.

Passenger car traffic through the San Ysidro border crossing dropped from normal levels from midnight through 8 a.m., De Cima said.
“From 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. there were actually more cars than a week ago,” she said.

But as time went on, traffic let up so much that, between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., only 1,500 cars entered the U.S. through the Port of Entry, compared with 3,900 a week ago.

On the U.S. side, the community of San Ysidro, where many Tijuana residents normally go to shop, dine or do banking, was mostly deserted in the morning.

Scores of money exchanges, insurance offices, shoe stores and small retailers along San Ysidro Boulevard were closed. It was unclear if some businesses were forced to close due to lack of staffing. Several had left signs in their windows in support of immigrants.

A sign on the door of the Denny's on Willow Road, frequented by border crossers, said the restaurant was “temporarily closed.”

Shoppers are usually waiting for the Kids Supercenter to open at 8 a.m. On Monday morning, no one was waiting, according to employee AnaliCamacho. The store has 10 workers, all of whom requested the day off. Seven of those requests were approved, Camacho said.

By 9 a.m., only eight clients had visited Mercado Internacional, said manager Marcela Nuño. The market, which sells groceries and household items, was operating with five employees, instead of its usual eight to 10, she said.

“It's empty, deserted, there's nothing,” said Nuño. “We don't have anything to do.”

By 1:45 p.m. about 4,000 to 5,000 protesters, holding flags and signs, marched from Larson Field Park onto Camino de la Plaza to San Ysidro Boulevard and onto Via de San Ysidro on their way back to the park.

The boycott also affected school attendance around the county, in some places dramatically.

In the San Diego Unified School District, about 26,000 of the 132,000 students did not attend classes. The district has about 6,600 absences on a typical Monday, officials said.

Hundreds of other students arrived late for classes Monday morning because nearly 30 of the district's 500 bus drivers didn't show up for work, presumably to participate in the “Day Without An Immigrant” protests.

The district had to scramble to find substitute bus drivers. Some students were more than an hour late.

“There were delays, but all the students finally did get a ride to school,” said Dick Van Der Laan, chief spokesman for the district. “There may be some similar delays this afternoon.”

About 500 bus drivers shuttle the district's students to and from school each day. On a typical Monday, only about 10 or 11 bus drivers are out, Van Der Laan said.

Some schools reported low attendance, but there were no disruptions or reports of arrests. Teacher attendance was said to be about normal.

Attendance was sharply down at Logan Elementary School in Barrio Logan, where several classes had as few as five students. In nearby Logan Heights, the Memorial Academy of Learning and Technology only had about one-third of its roughly 1,500 students in class.

At Fallbrook High School, about 500 of the school's 3,000 students were absent; the normal absenteeism is about 100, said Superintendent Tom Anthony.

Superintendent Lou Obermeyer of the Valley Center Pauma Unified School District said about 150 students were absent from Valley Center High School, about 80 more than normal, and about 100 were absent from the middle school, about 60 more than normal.

Oceanside Unified School District officials reported no disruptions on its campuses, but high absenteeism. One student in five was absent from Jefferson Middle School.

Vista Unified School District also experienced a large spike in absences. The districtwide absentee rate jumped from 5 percent of 23,700 students to 16 percent.

In the San Dieguito Union High School District, officials looked for ways to allow students to air their concerns without leaving campus. At Torrey Pines High School, in Carmel Valley, they held a four-hour forum to give students a venue to discuss issues and hear from an immigration attorney.

“We want our students to exercise their rights, but we don't want them to sacrifice their education for it,” Principal Rick Schmitt said.

The forum apparently paid off. Torrey Pines High had no increased absences, Schmitt said.

As the morning got under way, a handful of Latino construction workers were on their hands and knees laying bricks on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue just north of E Street in the Gaslamp Quarter.

The men all said they agreed with the intentions of the protest and planned to participate. But work came first.

Mario Dominguez, 55, asked for the day off. He was told he couldn't miss work.

“As soon as work's over I'm going to Balboa Park (for a scheduled rally),” he said. He said the Latino movement to legalize illegal immigrants has come to a boil.

“It's already having an effect,” he said in Spanish.

He said he hopes the boycott will benefit agriculture workers. “They are the ones that suffer the most and are taken advantage of,” Dominguez said.

Like Dominguez, Miguel Moreno and Oscar Alvarado, also bricklayers, planned to make their way to the activities planned for Monday evening after their work shift ended at 3 p.m.

Moreno was given permission to miss work so he could participate in the protest. But he started work at 6 a.m., as usual, because staying away would mean losing a day's pay.

“There's too many things to pay for,” Moreno said. “There's the rent; the truck; the power; the water. All of those things need to be paid. I would love to be able to not work, but I can't. I can't afford to not get paid.”

A few steps away, Gustavo Lozano, the co-owner of Alambres Mexican Grill, had the doors to his restaurant open but it was empty inside. Lozano said that wasn't unusual for a Monday morning.

He said the protest would be noticed at night, during the evening rallies, when the “night crowd” is usually out.

But even though the boycott could reduce his day's income, Lozano said he supports the cause.

“We're with them, totally,” Lozano said. He said two employees asked to have the day off and were given permission.

"Seventy-three percent of Americans say that immigration is a serious problem.



The other 27 percent said, 'No habla Ingles'."

ILLEGAL, ILLEGAL, ILLEGAL. Now if I click my heels together will they all go back where they came from.

I was just listening to the radio and a boycott organizer was saying how well the boycotts worked. He said that the "markets are down".
I could only roar with laughter. I can hear the news, "Pedros taco stand closed today, GM drops 10%".
These guys don't buy anything anyway, they send every extra buck back to Mexico. What effect could they possibly have?? The only people hurt were their friends that had stores in their neighborhoods.