Marchers say "Si se Puede!" to call for statewide day of economic action

Rallies are being organized in both Salem and Portland. Supporters are asked not to work or make purchases.

Abby Sewell

This May Day, thousands of immigrant workers throughout the United States will show the nation what “a day without an immigrant” looks like. The May 1 general strike and boycott comes on the heels of months of protest in response to anti-immigrant legislation in the U.S. Congress.

Around the nation, millions of people have taken to the streets in recent months to declare their support for immigrant workers. The largest of these marches, which took place in Los Angeles on March 25, drew upwards of a million people, by organizers’ estimates. Protests inChicago and Dallas have drawn up to 300,000 and 500,000 respectively.

In Oregon, an estimated 12,000 rallied in Salem April 9, and 7,000 rallied in Portland the next day. With emotions running high, the national coalition of immigrants’ rights, labor, and social justice organizations decided to capitalize on the momentum by calling for a May Day general strike.

Ramon Ramirez of PCUN (the Oregon farmworkers’ union) issued the call for a general strike in Oregon at the April 9 rally in Salem.

“Let’s take a vote,” he told the assembled crowd. “Everyone in favor of a national strike on May 1, say, ‘Si, se puede!’ (Yes, we can!)”

The crowd roared back, “Si, se puede!”

On May Day, rallies will take place at the capitol in Salem and in Portland, where organizers are expecting a march of 20,000 or more.

The original anti-immmigrant bill. HR4437, introduced by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) would make illegal immigration a felony, would broaden the definition of “smuggling” to make providing aid to an undocumented immigrant a criminal offense, and would set aside funds to double the number of border patrol agents on the U.S./Mexico frontier and construct a 700-mile wall along the border.

The bill passed the House of Representatives last December. Now several modified versions are being debated in the Senate. Most of them are somewhat more moderate than the original bill, but all include the border security provisions.

The original Sensenbrenner bill was unpopular with employers who rely on immigrant labor, as well as with labor activists and immigrants themselves. Several modified versions of the bill, such as the McCain-Kennedy bill, have moved to appease business interests and some labor and immigrants groups by adding a provision for a “guest worker” program, which would allow immigrants to work in the United States a period of up to six years, after which they would have to return to their home countries. However, the program would not provide any option of permanent residency or citizenship, and guest workers who lost their jobs would be deported after 60 days.

Organized labor has been divided on the McCain-Kennedy bill, with the national Service Employees International Union supporting it and the AFL-CIO opposing it.

SEIU president Andy Stern said in a statement that he sees the guest worker program as a way to bring undocumented workers out of the informal economy, where “workers have little protection and work for substandard pay in hazardous contions.”

On the other hand, AFLC-CIO executive vice-president Linda Chavez-Thompson said the guest worker program renders workers completely dependent on their employers for their legal status.

“Guest workers are never truly free, rendering them ripe for exploitation,” she said.

Dan Denvir, director of the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC), which is part of the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, said, “None of the legislation on the table addresses the root causes of immigration, which are U.S. trade and foreign policy.”

Many social justice activists believe that free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA are largely responsible for disrupting local economies in Central America, which caused an increased flow of immigrants from these countries to the United States. Immigration from Mexico nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000, with most of that growth coming after 1994, when NAFTA went into effect.

Ironically, 174 Republicans and four Democrats in Congress voted both for CAFTA and for the Sensenbrenner bill.

“Essentially this is forcing people to immigrate and then beating them as they come across,” Denvir said, adding that measures like the proposed border wall will lead to more border-crossing deaths, as people attempt to find ever more remote locations at which to cross.

As of press time, the Senate was on recess. Denvir said the coalition is hoping that none of the legislation currently on the table will pass and that the state of stalemate will continue until the political climate grows more favorable to immigrants. This appears unlikely to happen under the current Congress.

In an e-mail sent to PCASC by a young Chicana woman, she said, “This May Day, we’re going to abstain from consuming all U.S. products. This isn’t only to help immigrants but to help all people in the world living under U.S. control. Si, se puede!”

Nationally, immigrants’ rights advocates have been divided over the proposed strike and boycott. Some fear that it will backfire, making immigrants appear threatening or unpatriotic. However, in Portland, the immigrants rights coalition is presenting a united front in favor of the strike. The coalition includes PCASC, PCUN, CAUSA, VOZ (the day laborers’ organizing project), CAUSA (the statewide immigrant rights group), SEIU Local 49, and the American Friends Service Committee.

Abby Sewell is a freelance writer and member of the Back-to-Back Collective.