Thousands of union members rallied Monday to support Mexican migrants working in the United States and call for a boycott of American goods in what was dubbed “A Day Without Gringos”.
At least a half-dozen state governors in Mexico endorsed the boycott of McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and hundreds of other U.S. companies — an action timed to coincide with a call for immigrants to boycott work, school and shopping in the United States to show their importance to the country.
At the U.S. Embassy on Mexico City’s central Paseo de la Reforma boulevard, about 50 police officers — many of them carrying helmets, batons and plastic shields — massed behind 15-foot barricades as supporters of the Zapatista rebel movement prepared to welcome their leader, Subcomandante Marcos, who has supported the boycott and U.S. work stoppages.
President Vicente Fox on Sunday urged Mexican protesters to be prudent. “They shouldn’t be an element of provocation or one that promotes xenophobia or opposition” to immigration reform in the United States, Fox said.
Fox said he was convinced legislation benefiting undocumented Mexican migrants living and working north of the border likely would be passed by U.S. lawmakers soon.
Since taking office in 2000, Fox repeatedly has called for a migration accord that would legalize the millions of undocumented Mexican workers living in the United States.
He also has criticized as “stupid” a U.S. House of Representatives bill calling for the construction of 700 miles of fence along the 1,952-mile U.S.-Mexican border.
So, did your local newspaper and TV news support the “Day without Mexicans”? And did they also support the “Day without Gringos”?
Any insightful analysis from your mayor or governor, congressional representative?
I’m hoping ‘they’ do something similar here in the USA and stay home from work and boycott American goods and services…including the emergency rooms at hospitals, welfare, and schooling that ‘they’ seem to think are free for all criminals that cross the border illegally.
LOVe to see it..
We had an actual march here in New Orleans… There were American flags as well as Mexican and other nations…
I’m glad I didn’t have any house framing, roof work or concrete work scheduled today…
I wonder if they did that here, would they boycott Home Depot?
I find it amusing that people who have no legal right to be here are openly demonstrating to demand that the status quo remain unchanged. Even more amusing that people who have actually gone through the trouble of coming here legally are supporting it. And a little sad that natural born Americans are buying into it (with the exception of unions who are always eager to get more dues paying members into the fold).
It never surprises me to see dumb college and high school students demonstrating about anything. No matter how little their understanding is about at.
I know some people who immigrated here legally and they are NOT in support of this behavior. I find BOTH political parties rather disingenous in this matter. The Democrats are looking for more voters and the Republicans are looking to help business buddies with cheap labor.
With or without legal status, these families are earning such low wages that they’d be paying little or no federal income tax anyway. The biggest beneficiaries of having illegal immigrants are the farmers and companies that hire them at minimum or sub-minimum wage, but this creates more profits for those companies on which taxes are now paid. The majority of school funding comes from local property taxes, which illegals help to pay with their rent, although the actual tax is paid by the landlord. Every time an illegal immigrant buys something besides food, they’re paying state sales tax. If they register an auto, they’re paying more tax to the state, just as when they buy the gasoline the car runs on.
I’m only trying to make the point that the “paying no taxes” argument is inflated. It seems to come up a lot. I realize there are still serious immigration and border issues to be solved, but I’d like to see the arguments be equally serious.
“I find it amusing that people who have no legal right to be here are openly demonstrating to demand that the status quo remain unchanged.”
Mike – They don’t want it unchanged – they want citizenship last I read. There’s also a lot of demands under this one having to do with forcing official papers to be in Spanish.
I’ve said it once – I’ll say it again. If they make illegals legal then I want the right to steel from anyone as long as I hold on to what I steal for say 5 years. Or if I rape a woman – if I can convince her it’s her fault than she goes to jail.
THROW THEM OUT.
I guess today would not be the best day for me to try and sell my used Thunderbird Super Coupe huh? Perhaps tomorrow someone will buy my Chevy Aveo or El Camino! HA
What a sad state of affairs, that people who are here breaking the law have any say what so ever. This is the perfect time for INS to round ’em up and thorw them in the back of a dump truck to haul them back home
I had mexican food today for lunch. 🙂
Actually Gary the paying no taxes argument is correct in so much as what they pay dosen’t cover the costs of providing them with emergency room care, and educating their kids. It costs almost 3800.00 dollars per child to educate kids in California, and there are over 60,000 illegals children in the Los Anglelus school district alone.
Many people feel they should be allowed to stay, but the arrogance of the activists gets more noticable with each new march….waving American flags isn’t going to help them I think. While the MSM keeps ignoring the signs and speech’s about how they demand to be here and think it’s their right. But it’s changing….today just might be a big mistake for them.
Many of my friends whose family’s have been in this country(mexican) for 80, 90 and 100 years legally are against amnesty. My brother, who runs my families ranch/farm now in Arizona offered his Hispanic workers(all legal, who get damn good wages and benefits) the day off to go to the march in Phoenix…..not one wanted the day off. One guy said if he went he would be in a fight, because these people are keeping members of his family from coming here legally, since legal immigration is almost non-existant anymore from Mexico due to the huge influx of illegals.
@ Gary Marks
11,000,000 illegal immigrants paying even $100 a year in taxes would be $1,100,000,000. Not much, when compared to the astronomical deficit, but would still be somewhat helpful to have.
Can someone tell me, how thousands of criminals can gather and proclaim that they’re criminals and not be arrested? Shouldn’t INS be out there arresting some folks ! ? ! ?
If thousands of kiddie rapers gathered, would they not be arrested either? So, what we’re learning here that it’s ok to break the law if you can hold a rally?
SEND THEM HOME NOW!!!!
Well, Joshua, I agree that illegal immigrants are indeed a drag on school systems, but aside from the language issue that I agree is valid, the main reason is simply because they’re poor. School funding is derived from local property taxes, and poor people living in cheap housing have always been a drag, while higher income folks living in expensive houses contribute more than their share. Yes, their direct contribution is less than their cost of education, just like any poor person, and the reason they’re poor is because they’re doing cheap labor.
There is also a reverse argument to be made on taxes, too, that might make citizens feel a little less cheated. According to the Economic Report of the President (from 2005), over half the illegal workers are believed to be working “on book,” meaning that they are paying federal taxes in spite of their illegal status. They contribute to the tax rolls but are ineligible for almost all Federal public assistance programs and most major Federal-state programs.
I’m just saying these people may not be the anchor around our neck that we’ve been led to believe.
Several people have commented about brazen the “illegals” are by marching and thus advertising their legality. Recently the INS announced the arrest of something in the order of 1100 illegal immigrants at one company. Even before the arrest was announced in a photo op over 800 of them were released without bond with only a promise to appear. So go ahead and arrest all of them. Over 95% will be released the next day upon their own recognizance. We need some “camps” set up to house those charged with illegal immigration if there is not enough room in the jails.
This is what you get because you voted for the Republicans decades ago.
If those weren’t so obssesed in screwing up these latinamerican nations this problem would not be there.
Gosh, reading most of the posts up there makes me think that bigotry along with religion are two things an IT education doesn’t cure.
The most disgusting thing about these protests is the arrogance of the illegals. Rather than being appreciative towards a potential “amnesty” they instead try to paint the picture that “We dont need america. America needs us”.
I absolutely hate that the media is giving this much attention to the illegal protesters yet completely ignoring that most people don’t agree. The problem is that WE WENT TO WORK BECAUSE WE’RE SUPPOSED TO!
Boot them out. Wall off the border. 3 walls, each 1/4 mile apart, the intervening space filled with land mines and razor wire. The walls are 500ft tall. Create a 10 mile buffer zone inside the innermost wall by dusting that area with nuclear waste and anthrax. That takes care of the illegals.
Now for the legals, all government services are provided in English only.
Immigrants are not what made this country great. Assimilated immigrants are what made this country great. Unassimilated immigrants cause Global Warming.
Why do people assume that the 11,000,000 (or whatever the real # is) ILLEGAL immigrants will start abiding by the tax LAW and begin to pay federal/state income taxes?? This is crazytalk to assume it is a foregone conclusion, given the fact that they willingly broke Federal LAW to begin with. No?
What pisses me off is seeing them root around the streets yelling, screaming, and waving Mexico flags. WHY AREN’T THEY WAVING AMERICAN FLAGS? Don’t they love the United States?? If they love Mexico so much, go back please.
p.s. Is not being able to speak/understand English enough to get out of jury duty?
Immigrants are not what made this country great. Assimilated immigrants are what made this country great. Unassimilated immigrants cause Global Warming.
And here I was under the impression that it was Capitalism that made this country great.
And don’t cow farts cause Global Warming?
TAKe over Mexico,
THEY all want to BE HERE, anyway…
Only people that would complain, are the RICH,
Busines, as there wont be CHEAP lador…
There were protests in Phoenix today. This morning, one of the local TV stations was at a Home Depot. The local paper also has a story on thier website. (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0501AzBoycott01-ON.html)
I haven’t heard anything about us Gringos..
ECA says what I have been thinking for a while. I know it is not terribly realistic but it is fun to consider. We could make all of them U.S. citizens by invading Mexico. We can run Mexico a hell of a lot more efficiently than they are. They have great natural resources (oil) and they have a lot of coastline. Our political system and government, while terribly flawed, are far superior to theirs. There is no reason that Mexico should not be self sufficient.
We could conquer it in a week and there are not a ton of religious fanatics in Mexico so all of the insurgent activity that we are seeing in Iraq would not be as big of a problem. Hell, they truly would want us there. Once we take over, the standard of living would eventually rise enough that they would not have to come here to work for $2 an hour.
In Central CA, we cen’t “find americans to do the work”. The American we hired turned out to be a drunk and unreliable. He was all I could get. Within hours of putting out the word, I had an entire Mexican family doing everything we needed done around the apartment complex — for less and better!
So no these people are not 11 Million crminals they are here to do work no one else will do.,
DrBen
People… PEOPLE!
Can we PLEASE use the proper terminology?!?
Illegal ALIENS!
or
Legal IMMIGRANTS!
No such thing as “illegal immigrants”, no matter WHAT you read in the papers. I. I. is just spin to keep people from thinking.
P.S.
EVERY immigrant I’ve ever talked to despises illegals with a passion.
Good thing the rights-violation of the second ammendment is so wide-spread… otherwise, the legals would probably start target practice….
The sooner we stop thinking of other humans as ‘them’, and stop thinking of ‘our kind’ as ‘us’, the sooner we will fix nearly all of the problems in the world. It is that simple, and — that difficult, I am afraid.
#24 – Good clarification: Assimilated immigrants practicing Capitalism made the country great.
Cow farts also cause Global Warming. Depending on how you work the logic chain, pretty much everything causes Global Warming and we’re all gonna die.
The Illegal aliens really only want to come here because they figure it’s a better place to die when the whole globe goes crispy.
wow. you know what is strange? all this sturm unt drang is basically about people who have committed a crime against the US Immigration Bureaucracy. Entering this country illegally is about as immoral as stretching that home office deduction on the 1040. Against the law, yes. Wrong, yes. Enough to make the blood boil? Not for me, jack. Totally arbitrary, anyway. Any Cuban who makes it out of the surf gets to stay. Haitians get sent back home.
Oh, and if it is their illegal status that chaps you, and not their foreignness … what about doubling or tripling the number of legal immigrants.
Opposed?
Well, maybe then it is not the illegality that is really your beef ….
My day with out mexican went by unoticed
DrBen, see, you are part of the PROBLEM!! If your workers have green cards…great, don’t care what they are, if they are illegals, then you are a criminal, Doc. You just hired someone who is here illegally…so why not let a drug dealer set up shop in your garage, and rent out a room to a practicing rapist?
Dr, the bit is…..that you hired ONE GUY and you made a bad judgement. There are GOOD people out there looking for work too….and black people, and chinese, and white…you just hooked into the wrong market there. You should have checked some resources and called his references. Just because YOU are lazy, you are saying that mexican workers are BETTER, and gringos are all drunks? What a terribly racist thing to say…..
Now….try explaining why you are so racist…because it’s CHEAP AND EASY?
Shame, shame on you.
#15 Gary…..California supports it’s schools through the state education fund. It’s against the state constitution to use property taxes to fund schools here. Schools get a per day, per student allowance not to exceed a certain amount(approx. 3800.00), if a student dosen’t show, they don’t get paid for that student for that day. As to federal taxes, the figure for the ID tax number that is available for illegal aliens is less than 23% actually paying their fed taxes. Most of these 11 million illegals wouldn’t pay any federal taxes anyway, they are primarily unskilled labour. But they would be able to get federal housing, food stamps which they can’t get now unless they have forged papers.(which, by the way a large percentage have….another crime ) .
#17…angel….Mexico is quite capable of screwing itself up. The country is run by 300 famalies who control most of the wealth. If these illegal aliens are so damn demanding, go home and protest….they won’t because they will get the crap beat out of them by the police and army, go to jail and quite probably get shot. The last amnesty of the illegals was in 1986 by a Republican President(a conservative as well) Ronald Reagan.
#32 doug…..if you have ever read my previous posts on this subject you would know that I have proposed that we restore and increase the entry numbers from south of the border. They have been almost zero for some years because of the huge flow of illegals coming here. The only people opposed to this are the businesses that hire the illegals when they show up with obviously fake green cards looking for work. My family has owned a home in a small fishing village on the baja coast since the early 50″s, there aren”t a more hard working people than the Mexicans on Earth. My Mothers family came here in 1906, learned English, raised their kids and only allowed English to be spoken in the home and took their citizenship tests in english. My fathers family have been here since before it was a country, they gave the citizenship tests to Washingtons ancestors. I have no problem with legal immigration by any group from any where. But when you sneak into a country(a serious offense in all of the countries south of the border, hard jail time in most) you should not be given a free ride and placed at the head of the line. Thats why I’m for the McCain/Kennedy bill….it makes them pay up for being here illegally, pay their back taxes and in 11 years they can become a citizen.