Some immigrant backers fear boycott backlash
WASHINGTON – Monday’s “Day Without Immigrants” work-and-school boycott is a show of political and economic clout designed to prod Washington into granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
But some legalization backers, prominent Hispanic groups among them, fear that the boycott on work and spending in Dallas and other cities is ill-timed and something of a tactical blunder.
The Senate, after all, appears on track in the coming weeks to approve a sweeping immigration overhaul that pairs stiffer immigration enforcement with a pathway to eventual citizenship for most of the nation’s 11 million-plus illegal immigrants.
The real need to flex political muscle, boycott skeptics say, may come later this year: when congressional negotiators meet to reconcile the Senate’s expansive vision with a far narrower House bill that tightens the border, criminalizes illegal immigrants and cracks down on rogue employers.
The differences between the chambers loom large, and many fear the legislation could founder during final negotiations without intense political pressure.
Unleashing a boycott now “would be throwing the atomic bomb … the last weapon in our arsenal,” said National Capital Immigration Coalition chairman Jaime Contreras. His group, which turned out hundreds of thousands of marchers for an April 10 rally on the National Mall, is not asking supporters to skip work or school Monday.
“We will carefully watch movement on the Hill and will reserve the tactic of a strike if and when it is most necessary,” Contreras said.
Fearful that a one-day strike and boycott of shops and restaurants sets an antagonistic tone and could spark a backlash, a range of national and community-based groups are urging students to remain in class and workers on the job unless given the day off by their bosses. Instead, they are encouraging participation in rallies, voter registration drives and other activities before and after school and work Monday.
“Any kind of action or strategy that could give us a negative backlash of some kind is unhelpful in passing the legislation we need,” said Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who traveled to Washington to lobby the White House and Congress on Friday for passage of a legalization bill. President Bush, who says he supports a comprehensive immigration overhaul, said Friday he opposes the boycott.
But organizers of the “Great American Boycott” are making no apologies, saying it’s imperative that immigrants – legal and illegal – and their allies make their voices heard loudly.
“We’re all losers if we continue this sinister game of condemning a segment of the population to live and work in the condition of modern-day slaves,” said Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of Latino Movement USA, which is organizing Monday’s boycott with the anti-war ANSWER Coalition. “This is not good for business. It’s not good for workers, certainly. So we fully expect all of the American people to get the point on Monday that to have an undocumented population is a bad proposition.”
While acknowledging that immigrant-rights leaders are split on the boycott, Gutierrez bristled when asked if there’s a rift among the groups. “There are no divisions in the ranks of the pro-immigrant coalitions,” he said, only what he called a “tactical disagreement.”
“May 1st will come; it will be historical,” he said, predicting millions will heed the boycott and work stoppage. “But then we need to continue working. We believe that there is more in common between all of us in the immigrant-rights movement than differences that should tear us apart.”
Hector Flores, a Dallas school administrator who is national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, rejected the idea that Monday’s boycott makes premature use of his movement’s biggest weapon.
“Do you know what our nuclear weapon is going to be? In November, when the elections take place,” he said. Monday’s campaign “is not a one-day deal. It’s not a one-strategy deal either.”