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Vol. 72/No. 15      April 14, 2008

 
D.C. coalition calls march for May Day
(front page)
 
BY SETH DELLINGER  
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 29—The first meeting of the D.C. May 1st Coalition was held here today at St. Stephen’s Church to plan a May 1 rally and march from Malcolm X Park in Washington. The action will demand legalization for all undocumented immigrants and an end to immigration raids and deportations.

The coalition here was initiated by Mexicanos sin Fronteras (Mexicans Without Borders). This group led large mobilizations in Prince William County, Virginia, last year against a resolution granting local cops the powers of federal immigration agents. Thousands of workers participated in mass meetings, marches, a week-long economic boycott of non-immigrant businesses, and a one-day county-wide work stoppage. The law went into effect March 3.

In addition to Washington, D.C., May Day rallies have been called in Boston; Chicago; Detroit; Houston; Los Angeles; New York City; Miami; San Francisco; San Jose, California; Seattle; and St. Paul, Minnesota. Workers are discussing plans to skip work that day in a number of cities.

Since July, the Prince William County jail has held prisoners who do not have legal residency and turned them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Nearly 700 have been turned over. The new law allows cops to question people about their status. In the first month, the county police chief reported that 89 people were questioned, mostly at traffic stops and after calling the cops for service. Of those, 41 have been arrested.

Ricardo Juárez, a leader of Mexicanos Sin Fronteras, said the new laws have convinced some workers to move out of the area. Workers in the region are already hit hard by the downturn in the construction industry.

“We cannot say these people are leaving,” Juárez told the meeting. “They are being displaced.”

“It’s an injustice for immigrants and for everybody,” Julio Davila, told the Militant. Davila, 18, is a high school student from Annandale, Virginia, and one of a half dozen members of the youth group Barrios Unidos (United Neighborhoods) who came to the meeting.

Davila said he decided to get involved after hearing about the impact of anti-immigrant laws in Prince William County from his father, who is a construction worker there.

Many at the coalition meeting were outraged about an immigration raid that took place in Manassas, Virginia, five days earlier. ICE agents arrested 34 workers at CMC Concrete Construction.
 
 
Related articles:
Immigration debated in Spain
Somalis protest ‘antiterror’ arrests in Sweden  
 
 
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