Millions mark America's 'day without immigrants'

David Mondragon of Mexico waves an American flag as he marches with thousands of demonstrators through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Picture / Reuters

LOS ANGELES - The surging movement for immigrants' rights across the United States reached new heights today as millions of foreign-born workers walked off their jobs, withheld all but the most necessary consumer purchases and joined May Day protest marches in more than 50 cities.

The "day without immigrants" was widely expected to be the biggest protest to date.

In Los Angeles, the focal point of the battle for greater workplace protection and legal recognition for an estimated 12 million undocumented workers across the country, the numbers were expected to outstrip even the half million people who unexpectedly crowded the city centre at a watershed demonstration in late March.

Across southern California, middle and high school students failed to show up at school.

Police and civic authorities arranged an ambitious programme of street closures on a scale reminiscent of an Olympic Games or presidential funeral.

Nannies and gardeners informed their wealthy employers that they would not be showing up for the day.

Several big businesses, including slaughterhouses in the Great Plains and numerous branches of McDonald's, either rearranged working shifts or decided to close for the day in recognition of the fact that their workforces would be severely depleted.

In New York, workers in each of the city's five boroughs came together shortly after noon to link arms with shoppers, restaurant-goers and other supporters.

In Union Square and along Broadway, much of the usual bustle of small shops and market traders fell to a low hush.

Later in the day, Chicago authorities were expecting half a million people including Arabs, Asians and eastern Europeans as well as Latinos.

Other big protests were planned in Philadelphia, Seattle, Orlando and dozens of smaller cities.

"There's no question in my mind that we are in the midst of an historic, new social movement," commented Marc Cooper, a border and immigration specialist with the University of Southern California's Institute for Justice and Journalism.

"It's taken decades to build and reach critical mass and it is still going to take years to mature and fully pay off. So far, the cool-headed long-term strategists have dominated."

For now, the street protesters have made almost all of the political running.

Opinion polls have shown a sea-change in public attitudes to immigration reform in recent weeks, as an emphasis on securing the border and rounding up "illegals" has given way to an acknowledgment that all workers in the economy deserve basic respect and dignity.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from last week showed 68 per cent of respondents supporting a Senate bill that would allow illegal immigrants to join a guest worker programme en route to full citizenship.

Not everyone, however, has shown equal enthusiasm for yesterday's economic boycott and work stoppage.

Many supporters of progressive immigration reform have expressed the fear that a boycott could squander much of the goodwill built up in recent weeks.

School administrators have pointed out that for every child who plays truant, they will lose money from their state coffers - thus doing direct damage to institutions in the forefront of improving the lives of immigrants and their children.

Los Angeles' Mexican American mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, appeared unsure yesterday whether to make an appearance at the marches, as he has in the past, or whether he should go ahead with plans to fly to Texas to negotiate the possible purchase of an American football team for his city.

On the eve of the march, he urged students to stay in school and join the marches afterwards.

LA's Roman Catholic Archibishop Roger Mahony, another big advocate of progressive immigration reform, sounded similarly torn when he expressed his hopes for a constructive day of protest.

"I just simply ask [the boycotters], whatever they do, to do it in a way that is peaceful and that helps change the hearts and minds of Americans in a positive way," he said.

Most of the country's political leadership appeared too cowed by the scale of the protest to offer much opinion one way or the other.

It has been a remarkable shift since last December, when the Republican radicals in the House of Representatives passed a draconian bill that would have made felons of all illegal immigrants and given the go-ahead of a 700-mile military fence across much of the US-Mexican border.

The Senate is now making its second attempt to draft much more liberal legislation to create a guest worker programme and end the cat-and-mouse border crossings that claim hundreds of lives each year.

Vigilante groups like the Minutemen, which once captured all the headlines, have been reduced to marginal status.

A couple of hundred of them built their own barbed-wire fence in a stretch of desert east of San Diego over the weekend.

Unlike their efforts a year ago, which attracted widespread media attention, the new fence went almost unnoticed.

- INDEPENDENT