Posted on 02/15/2017 8:29:00 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Donald Trump’s rise to the White House has been accompanied by increasingly harsh rhetoric about immigration.
In response, local immigrant rights activists have decided to give Philly a taste of what the world would be like if proponents of mass deportations had their way. They've planned a “Day without Immigrants” (Un Dia Sin Immigrante) protest on Thursday.
“What if a good chunk of Philadelphia society was gone in one day? This is what we’re talking about,” said Miguel Andrade, an organizer with Juntos, an immigrants' activist group that is coordinating the protest.
Immigrants will be “closing shops, not sending their children to school and not engaging in consumerism,” Juntos said in a statement.
But a dip in economic activity isn’t the purpose of the protest, they said.
“The point of this is not only to show what the effects on day-to-day life are going to be like, business and restaurants not being open, but really showing what mass deportations would look like,” Andrade said. “This is your classmate, your neighbor, your coworker — and they could easily be gone in the blink of an eye.”
The planned protest is one of several happening across the country Thursday. Similar walkouts are planned in such places as Washington, Austin, Texas, and the Jersey Shore.
In Philadelphia, some top restaurateurs have voiced support for the walk-out.
Stephen Starr, owner of Starr Restaurants, told Billy Penn he wouldn’t punish any workers who participated in the walkout. “It’s sad that it has come to this,” he said. “They should not have to live in fear.”
The Philadelphia Republican Party responded on Twitter to news of the planned walkout by stating, “We support legal immigration. We oppose illegal immigration.”
That’s a distinction Andrade rejected.
“No human being is illegal,” he said. “People think you just get in line, fill out a form, and come in the right way. But it’s a long and arduous process that costs thousands of dollars and takes years.”
Andrade isn’t exactly sure how many people will participate in the protest, but said another walkout is already planned for May 1.
Mass raids: fear or fiction?
The protest comes just days after immigration officers arrested more than 680 people around the country.
“This past weekend we saw large-scale raids happening across the country and are bracing for them to hit Philadelphia,” Juntos said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said the arrests were part of regular operations.
But immigration activists from Juntos said they expect to see “more aggressive tactics from a federal agency that is now emboldened by the racist and xenophobic speech of Donald Trump.”
While such raids have not yet been reported in Philadelphia, organizers said they have been receiving panicked texts and calls from immigrants around the city who fear such raids could take place.
Like the Rapture?>>. very funny i won’t miss them. maybe they won’t come back. is mayor kenny (idiot) joining them?
Too bad they don’t post signs on their windows
They support illegals....this way local Americans would know what shops to boycott>>> i boycott the obama, rendell and other leftists places that post socialist political crap. most are proud of it.
I might visit my local taco truck.
They do this every year now?
If a day is good, wouldn't a month be better?
Or six?
A day without immigrants? Try a day without illegal immigrants.
In the DC metro area it would mean that another young man or girl wouldn’t be tortured, raped and killed.
It would mean an illegal drunk driver wouldn’t hurt or kill someone. (If my then pregnant daughter had been sitting in her car in front of her apparent when a drunk Mexican illegal drove straight into it, both she and my wonderful granddaughter would have been killed).
MS 13 and MS 18 wouldn’t be around to terrorize poorer neighborhoods, rob and kill people.
Heroin and other drugs wouldn’t be flooding our cities and counties.
Welfare leeches wouldn’t be here.
Our schools wouldn’t be overcrowded with children who can’t speak English, whose parents often don’t help them to speak English, and who often don’t care.
Our hospitals, esp. the Emergency rooms wouldn’t be overflowing and our medical costs rising through the roof.
Young black men might have a chance to get a job that an illegal has.
You know the rest.
Yes, Philadelpha, go for a day without “immigrants” and if it successful, try it for a week. Then count have many lives have been saved, how many crime victims there “weren’t”, how much less trash there was in the streets of the City of Brotherly Murder, and how it felt, for many areas, to be able to walk safely down the street for once.
ICE should have fleets of buses ready and waiting for them as they walk off their jobs.
The cheap labor express has got their hands all over this. People in the construction trades, truck drivers, and various other industries used to be able to make a decent living.
Just another example of how stupid these morons really are. If they had scheduled this fiasco for Friday, they could have had a FOUR DAY WEEKEND. MORONS! LOL.
Take your PTO.
If you were serious you’d take a month off .
Mass deportations are for illegal immigrants, not those who are here legally.
They keep repeating that stupid little line. A human being as such may not be illegal but their actions sure can be! Like entering a foreign country without proper authorization. Or murdering someone. Or trafficking drugs...
"Potential Vacancies Opening Up Soon"
See how many of their employees take note.
my kid runs a place in DC. She was informed her staff was going to skip work, so she told them “okay, don’t come in on Friday. Lots of people want your job”.(that’s her mama’s girl!!!)
We’ll see how it goes.
They want to show us what life without illegals would be like?
How about we force them to drink dirty water, eat rotten food, do without public transportation, get shaken down by the local police/drug cartels, deprive them of any thought of public assistance to show them what life in their home country is like?
USA population is 324 million, 11 mill are illegals, so this is a non-perceptible drip of water in a demi cup.
Doesn't that already happen in some liberal enclaves?
“By their definition, the Germans “immigrated” into Poland during WW2, and the Mongols “immigrated” across Asia and into Europe.”
We don’t call Satan the father of lies for nothing.
Fairly soon, we may see mass "immigration" of Volksdeutsche into Poland after the Muslims chase them out of Germany.
“Fairly soon, we may see mass “immigration” of Volksdeutsche into Poland after the Muslims chase them out of Germany.”
The pigdog murder muzzies won’t want to let their human shields go.
Ha! Good kid means good parents.
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