Hispanic groups in the U.S. are planning a major boycott of American life dubbed a ”day without Latinos” to protest proposed legislation that would criminalize illegal immigration.
Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) President Nativo Lopez, one of the organizers of the recent protests in Los Angeles that saw at least 500,000 people take to the streets, said the May 1 "day without Latinos” would send a stern message to Washington.
"We are looking forward to a major action in all large U.S. cities where immigrants make up a significant proportion of the workforce,” Lopez told Agence France-Presse.
"We are asking people not to go to school, or work, or shopping, and instead to go out and protest against the racist and inhumane measures in this bill.”
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MAPA and other grass roots Latino groups are also organizing an April 10 protest in 20 major American cities – including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas – in a bid to defeat the proposed immigration reform bill, Lopez said.
And a third day of protest is scheduled to take place Saturday in Costa Mesa, a town in Orange County, Calif., that has been a focus of anti-illegal immigrant protests for the past several months.
The city’s mayor has pushed a proposal through the city council to train police to nab and deport illegal aliens who commit crimes.
Said Lopez: "We are going there to make a tough statement right in the bedrock of the anti-immigrant movement.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, May 1 is also known as "May Day," the International Worker's Day, which is infamously celebrated in Moscow's Red Square and by communists and socialists throughout the world.