Immigrant boycott aims to "CLOSE" US cities (Millions of Latinos to demand amnesty)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pro-immigration activists say a nationwide boycott and marches planned for May 1 will flood Americas's streets with millions of Latinos to demand amnesty for illegal immigrants and shake the ground under Congress as it tackles reform.

But while such a massive turnout could make for the largest protests since the civil rights era of the 1960s, not all Latinos, nor their leaders, were comfortable with such militancy -- fearing a backlash in Middle America.

"There will be 2 to 3 million people hitting the streets in Los Angeles alone. We're going to close down Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tucson, Phoenix, Fresno," said Jorge Rodriguez, a union official who helped organize earlier rallies credited with rattling Congress as it debates the issue.

Immigration has split Congress, the Republican Party and public opinion. Conservatives want the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to be classified as felons and a fence built along the Mexican border.

Others, including President George W. Bush, want a guest worker program and a path to citizenship. Most agree some reform is needed to stem the flow of poor to the world's biggest economy.

"We want full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here (illegally)," Rodriguez said. "That is the message that is going to be played out across the country on May 1."

Organizers of the May Day marches, which have strong support from big labor and the Roman Catholic church, vow that America's major cities will grind to a halt and its economy will stagger as Latinos walk off their jobs and skip school.

Teachers' unions in major cities have said children should not be punished for walking out of class. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District said school principals had been told that they should not try to keep students in class but instead should walk with the children to help keep order.

In Chicago, Catholic priests have helped organize protests, sending information to all 375 parishes in the archdiocese.

Chicago activists predict that the demonstrations will draw 300,000 people -- compared to the 100,000 who turned out on March 10 to clog downtown streets. Minneapolis-based agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. said it will close seven meatpacking plants so workers can participate.

In New York, leaders of the May 1 Coalition said a growing number of businesses had pledged to close and allow their workers to attend a rally in Manhattan's Union Square.

But some Latinos have expressed ambivalence about the boycott and marches, saying they could stir up anti-immigrant sentiment amid an incendiary atmosphere surrounding the issue.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles archdiocese, who has emerged as an outspoken champion of immigrant rights -- even calling on priests to defy laws aimed at those who would help illegals -- has lobbied against a walkout.

"Personally I believe we can make May 1st a 'win-win' day here in Southern California," Mahony said in a statement. "Go to work, go to school, and then join thousands of us at a major rally afterward."

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the son of a Mexican immigrant who has long fought for immigrant rights, has taken a low profile on the issue. A Villaraigosa spokeswoman said the mayor expects protesters to be "lawful and respectful" and wants children to stay in school.

Critics have accused pro-immigrant leaders of stirring up uninformed young Latinos by telling them that their parents were in imminent danger of being deported and accuse them of trying to bully Congress.

"It's intimidation," Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman volunteer border patrol group, said of the May 1 events. "It's intimidation when a million people march down main streets in our major cities under the Mexican flag."

"It angers the people you are trying to impress," he said. "This will backfire just like the Mexican flag parades backfired."

(Additional reporting by Aarthi Sivaraman in Los Angeles, Dan Trotta in New York and Michael Conlon in Chicago)

May 1 is going to be “A Day Without Illegal Aliens.”

This is supposed to frighten you.

Why? Because you are an American -- weak, pampered, spoiled and allegedly incapable of taking care of yourself. You need the illegal alien servant class just to survive.

Those who want amnesty for immigration criminals -- illegal aliens, pandering politicians, ethnic grievance agitators and the politically correct media -- have swallowed their own propaganda and believe that the American economy is totally dependent for its greatness on unskilled illegal labor and the corrupt underground economy it fosters.

So on May 1, the ridiculous, old socialist “workers’ holiday” known overseas as “May Day,” they intend to punish the American people, and intimidate Congress into passing a “guest worker” amnesty, by marching in the streets, boycotting American stores, and shutting down the corrupt businesses that have illegally employed them.

What a mistake. This will not paralyze the American economy -- but it will paralyze the underground economy and the greedy businesses that profit from it.

If you have ever wondered which local businesses hire illegal aliens and which ones hire legal residents and play by the rules, then on Monday, May 1, you will finally know.

Those businesses still functioning on May 1, dubbed “A Day Without Illegal Aliens” by the scheme’s organizers, will be the honest ones. They’ll be the ones who hire only legal immigrants and American citizens, obey our labor laws, collect their employee’s taxes, and pay their workers a fair legal wage.

The ones without employees will be the crooks, the corrupt schemers that have fueled the chaos on our insecure borders by providing no-questions-asked jobs to anyone willing to sneak into our country, work off the books and in the shadows, and accept substandard pay and conditions that no American could be legally made to tolerate.

That’s why movements have popped up all over the country to use this fabulous opportunity to fight illegal labor and the crooked system of human smuggling, document forgery, tax evasion, and sweat shop wages that have grown up around it.

I originally proposed calling May 1 “Conservative Shopping Day,” since so many of my fellow grassroots conservatives were disgusted with our open borders, illegal labor, and the march towards amnesty in Congress. But this goes well beyond one political movement.

Almost everyone I have spoken with -- conservatives, liberals, moderates, independents, Democrats, Republicans, legal immigrants, and native-born citizens alike -- are disgusted with the current widespread corruption of our economy and laws by illegal labor. They are disgusted in no small part because illegal labor is a national corruption that is openly condoned by the leadership of both political parties, who are much more eager to harvest campaign contributions from crooked business interests and votes from amnestied immigration criminals than they are to enforce our laws, secure our borders and protect the wages of working Americans.

In the spirit of putting aside partisan politics and joining together with all Americans that are opposed to illegal labor and demand that our laws be enforced by government, I encourage you to consider Monday, May 1 -- the threatened “Day Without Illegal Aliens” -- to be a day of action for all Americans. Conservative Shopping Day is for everyone opposed to illegal immigration and out of control borders.

It is a day to fight for the rule of law, without having to beg our elected “leaders” to listen to their own voters. The strategy is simple and direct:

GET OUT AND SUPPORT THOSE BUSINESSES THAT PLAY BY THE RULES.

This will not only reward the law-abiding and allow one to avoid the corrupt, but it will also send a powerful message.

The planned boycott of American stores and businesses by illegal aliens and their enablers is designed to demonstrate the “purchasing power” of illegal workers and to cause a frightening one-day shock to American retail sales. It is being adopted and echoed by foreign supporters of illegal immigration as well. In Mexico, a nation that has become dependent upon the billions of dollars that illegal workers inside the United States send home each year, it is being called “Nothing Gringo Day.”

Through this contrivance, the illegal labor lobby hopes to appear more powerful and to frighten retailers into supporting amnesty, which is being dishonestly called a “temporary guest worker program” in Washington.

By making a point to do as much shopping as possible on May 1, Conservative Shopping Day, Americans can stop this scam in its tracks. If the issue is to be decided by a demonstration of “purchasing power,” then let’s demonstrate the purchasing power of 300 million legal American residents. The purchasing power of 11 million illegal workers and their bosses and sympathizers will pale in comparison.

Conservative Shopping Day: Five Things You Can Do to Fight Back

Buy, buy, buy. Make your regular purchases for the week or month, but make them all on May 1. Nobody needs to go broke, just to buy on one particular day. If you’ve been putting off a purchase, put it off no more. Besides, you know the clerks will all speak English if you shop on May 1. No more painful pantomime just to find out where the paper towels are.
Eat out. Contrary to pro-amnesty propaganda, most food service workers are American citizens -- but these workers do suffer much more from illegal labor wage competition than most. Get out and treat yourself to a nice meal -- one that serves up a big steamy bowl of justice for a change.
Take notice of which businesses can still function. These are the ones playing by the rules and deserve long-term support. Come back again and again. Avoid those that mysteriously close or are obviously understaffed.
Tell your friends. Send them this message or make up you own. Call it whatever you want and credit whomever you wish. All that matters is that people get out and shop.
Tell your congressman how much you enjoyed a day with illegal aliens. Write or call; it is one of the greatest powers you have. Elected officials figure that if you care enough to call on an issue, you care enough to vote on it. You can e-mail your senators and your congressman. And you can also call your senators and your congressman.

Conservative Shopping Day -- Monday, May 1.
A unique opportunity to do something good by doing something fun.

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