Undocumented Immigrants Are becoming more Activist

According to an article in today's USA Today.  Until recently, undocumented immigrants, had been relatively quiet. Now they are increasingly standing up to be heard. Work stoppages and boycotts are now being used to show the impact of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Many immigrants  figure that the risk of speaking out is outweighed by fears they will lose their jobs or even be deported if they don't make their case to the public, according to the article.
The Center for Immigration Studies, which wants less immigration to the U.S.,  blames this on the disappointment caused  when immigration reform fell apart in June.

According to Bill Hing, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in immigration, legal immigrants are also participating because some of their loved ones are here illegally. "The community is made up of a lot of mixed families," according to Hings. "There might be 10-to-13 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. You can multiply that five or six times to determine the number of people it affects, because of relatives and employers and co-workers and friends. Is that 50 to 78 million people? What would happen if they all voted. And if you add to that the Americans that want what's fair and what's best for America. Well, the possibilities are endless.

According to the article, a boycott in Prince William, Maryland asks immigrants to "spend money only at immigrant-owned businesses or those displaying a "pro-immigrant" poster. Prince William County is trying to implement anti undocumented laws. Immigrant leaders  such say boycotts are effective because they prove that the economy would suffer without immigrant workers.

The work stoppages are also being used, to show people how immigrants benefit our economy. Guess who's doing most of the ball busting work in the U.S.

Of course, those opposed to immigration reform and county official say that this will backfire and be ineffective. I guess we’re see.

•  Tips Jar for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

  by immigradvocate on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 01:37:44 PM PDT

•  Why am I the only one

  who has thus far said that undocumented immigrants were overwhekming hard working. If it were possible I would seal the border with the army and allow not one more Mexican into the US, either legal or not. I think we are becoming so overweighted with our southern neighbors that I could see a time a few decades in the future where they called the shots if they voted as a block.

  Back to my vote. Some 30+ years ago I was a partner in a construction company doing primarily heavy projects such as dams, water treatment and such. Our payroll sometimes got to about 200 workers. At the time contractors on work with a federal component of funding were given a wage scale for each craft and certified payroll reports had to be turned in weekly. One of our superintendents who spoke spanish recommended we hire 3 mexicans who were obviously illegal. We did so and they stayed with us about three years. There was competetion to see who got these three fellows because they were such outstanding workers. I realize the sample is small but it is firsthand experience.

  by orisk on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 02:45:49 PM PDT

  •  You want to shoot people on the border?

    Not allow your southern neighbors in because they work too hard? Cut off one of Americas biggest trading partners?

    Your post makes no sense.

    by mariachi mama on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 02:56:04 PM PDT

  •  You aren't the only one orisk. There are plenty

    who know that. Half the people chose all of the above, which included that.

    And there are also  plenty of Mexican bashers like you here. It's kind of ironic that you made money as a partner using quality (possibly) undocumented workers and now you want to kill the goose that has laid (and is laying) the golden egg in our economy. The hate mongering and contempt that so many people like you have for Mexicans and other immigrants could cause hell to break loose. And if hell does break loose, I hate to use your own words against you but:

    "You Break it, You own it"

    by immigradvocate on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 05:44:14 PM PDT

    •  Yeah wan't that the strangest

      comment, ever? He want's to exclude anyone from Mexico from entering, I expect that means tourists and shoppers and businessmen, as well. And oil, I guess he wants to keep Mexican oil south of the border, too.

      by mariachi mama on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 08:23:07 PM PDT

•  Stephen Colbert

  solves it all

  http://www.crooksandliars.com/...

  by mariachi mama on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 04:02:17 PM PDT

•  That is such a funny video. But what amazes me

  is that there is so much open hate and so much apathy and indiference to the plight of our immigrant neighbors here.
  And as of now, almost half of the responders in the poll want to remove all undocumented immigrants immediately, or don't seem to care.
  Steve Colbert seems to come closer to the truth about the reality of the undocumented workers more than the news in the MSM.

  by immigradvocate on Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 05:28:07 PM PDT

•  Immigrant-bashing=scapegoating

  Even progressives just don't get it, immigradvocate. It's the divide and conquer strategy run wild. The white and black working and increasingly less-middle-class blame immigrants but never focus on any but brown and Asian immigrants - not undocumented Europeans, of which there are many - while the elites smoke their Cuban cigars, send their undocumented maids to fix them a fresh martini, munch an organic salad picked by exploited Latin American or Asian undocumented workers or prisoners (agribusinesses are chasing prison contracts to replace the immigrants who won't come here anymore) and tell their wives some lie as they head off to an exotic imported sex slave orgy. I wish I were exaggerating but I've known/seen elites who behave just that way. The hypocrisy is nauseating. Just expect it to get worse if the US dollar keeps crashing and more jobs are lost. This isn't the sharpest population on the class issue, North Americans, that is. Black Americans honestly believe white Americans (presuming "North" Americans as USAers do when they say "Americans") will hire us/them if all Latin American and Asians are deported tomorrow. Wrong. They'll simply raise the quota for European immigrants. Elites use immigration to depress wages and subvert labor organizing. They love multilingual advertising to sell imported crap, and to divide workers who can't understand each other, but hate it when it comes to voting rights. Even Thom Hartmann, liberal hero of anti-corporations-as-persons-fame, opposes multilingual voting ballots! Most European Americans think their grandparents came here "legally". They didn't. They were seduced here to help almost eliminate the native population in a pretty filthy genocide. There were no immigration exclusion laws until the Chinese Exclusionary Act - what a coincidence! Before that, there were no immigration "authorities" "securing" the borders, except at borders with the Spanish colony of Mexico and the French colonies until the Louisiana "Purchase". Ignorance is death to brown and black and Asian folks, and eventually to white folks who aren't the top 5% too. Teach on!

  by inaru on Fri Sep 21, 2007 at 01:31:12 AM PDT