Activists with the burgeoning immigrant-solidarity movement are planning a new round of marches, work stoppages and boycotts that they hope will draw 3 million people to 40 U.S. cities and towns April 10.
Organizers say Colorado Springs, Telluride and Grand Junction each will have events that day. A demonstration in Pueblo also is scheduled for April 8.
“A lot of spontaneous activity is happening,” said Ricardo Martinez of the Denver group Padres Unidos. “People are just doing it.”
Organizers predict that up to 300,000 people will march in Washington, D.C., on April 10 and as many as 3 million will take action of some kind across the country that day.
Their political opponents, who are demanding a firm crackdown on illegal immigration, say they believe the public displays are really serving their side of the debate.
“Nothing that I’ve seen in the recent past could have helped our cause more than the display of hundreds of thousands of people waving Mexican flags and essentially demanding the right to violate the law,” Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Littleton said of marches that began last weekend. “I hope they have one every weekend.”
Organizers in Denver are not holding an event, to help maximize the turnout elsewhere in the state, they said. The show of force that occurred March 25, when an estimated 50,000 people filled Civic Center to overflowing, has inspired immigrants and their supporters to more action, others said.
“I think everyone’s come to the point that it’s either now or never,” said Karen Sherman-Perez, an organizer of Grand Junction’s March for Immigrant Rights April 10. “If they don’t show their support for what’s going on now, then their future will be decided by everyone else.”
Colorado Springs’ Latino Alliance is planning a simple news conference outside the city’s downtown Pioneer Museum – though that is what Denver organizers said before their Civic Center event, spokesman Albert Gonzales acknowledged.
“We’re not planning at this time for it to turn into a full-fledged march or anything,” he said. “We’re more interested in policy reform. But then again, we never can tell.”
Oscar Meza, a landscape worker and volunteer firefighter in Telluride, said his newly formed Hispanic Union is encouraging a general strike in the boutique resort town April 10. The legal U.S. resident is encouraging immigrants in Telluride to wear white that day, to stay away from work and to not spend any money.
“The people of Telluride, they like the Hispanic people,” Meza said. “We don’t have a big problem here. But we want to demonstrate in support to other states, to say ‘Hey, Telluride is with you.’ For that reason, I designed the campaign A Day Without Hispanics.”
Last week, the number of large cities taking part April 10 jumped from 10 to 39, said Ricardo Diaz, an organizer in Philadelphia.
“This is the mother of all rallies,” said Diaz, who predicted that groups of Chinese, Korean and Latino immigrants will fill Philadelphia’s Love Park that day. “People are (just now) hearing about it, and they’re signing up.”
Those pushing for reforms that reduce immigration, however, reject what the leaders of this increasingly assertive movement say is going on – a revival of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Such descriptions are “perverting an important piece of American history and in my opinion, disrespecting the effort, the pain and the turmoil that blacks in America went through to gain their legal and lawful rights,” said Fred Elbel, a leader of Defend Colorado Now, the group that wants voters to limit state services for illegal immigrants.
“The black movement was to get rights that were duly deserved,” Elbel said. “The illegal- alien movement that we’re seeing this week is trying to get rights that are blatantly illegal. They’re not rights.”
Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.
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