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Posted on 04/06/2004 4:00:11 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Pro-immigrant activists from Ontario announced plans Monday for another statewide La-tino economic boycott while local opponents of illegal immigration rushed to collect more signatures for a ballot initiative.
The competing efforts this week underscore the polarization over the issue of giving driver licenses and other public benefits to undocumented immigrants.
Both sides hope to influence Sacramento, where immigrant driver license bill S.B. 1160 remains stalled while the governor and the bill's sponsor investigate options to address national security and insurance concerns, a governor's spokesman said.
"The governor has said it could take longer than anyone expected and could be impossible. We don't know," spokesman Vince Sollitto said by phone.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, plans to visit San Bernardino's Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral on April 16 to update supporters on the bill's progress, legislative aide Nadia Leal said.
The economic boycott, planned for May 5 and 6, aims to twist the governor's arm into signing the bill, said Jesse Diaz Jr., a UC Riverside graduate student and Ontario activist.
"We put more into the economy than we take out," said Diaz , whose grandparents emigrated from Mexico. Immigrants suffer without driver licenses, he said.
Boycott organizers, including the Ontario-based Estamos Unidos, are urging people not to shop, work or eat at restaurants during that time. Diaz said they are encouraging people to attend rallies in Los Angeles and elsewhere. But unlike the Dec. 12 boycott, parents will not be asked to keep their children home from school, he said.
The boycott also will address efforts by opponents of illegal immigration to get a revised Prop. 187 on the November ballot. Prop. 187, passed in 1994, barred undocumented immigrants access to public services, but was later nullified.
As of March 28, supporters of a revised ballot initiative said they had collected about 405,000 signatures, including thousands from Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The revised initiative would bar undocumented immigrants' access to driver licenses and public benefits. It would also prohibit agencies from accepting foreign consulate ID cards as identification.
The group must submit 598,000 valid signatures by April 29 to qualify for the ballot, said initiative spokesman Andy Ramirez of Chino.
"I'm a man of faith," Ramirez said.
UCR political science professor Max Neiman questioned both the boycott and the ballot initiative effort.
Neiman said he's skeptical whether ballot initiative volunteers will be able to collect 300,000 more signatures in a couple of weeks, to provide a safeguard for signatures that may be disqualified. He said he also is uncertain if a boycott might backfire and agitate the public.
Activist Nativo Lopez, who led the Dec. 12 boycott and strike, said he fears the May boycott might be premature. Lopez, who heads the Mexican-American Political Association and Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, said 400 people lost their jobs in the December strike and that it took extensive efforts to help them get their jobs back.
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Then, if you never establish any sort of residency, legal or otherwise, they are good indefinitely (or the expiration date if you care about such things).
The point being that the only reason Mexicans want US drivers licenses is to create false identities so they don't get sent back home as frequently.
Also a US state's drivers license is what they check when you go through a legal port of entry --- if they check anything when you're coming back from Mexico --- the drivers licenses could be easily forged --- even Bush's daughters know how to do that, any minor wanting beer does --- anyone wanting to come over could easily do so.
How ironic. We are losing American boys in Iraq, while here in America George Bush is lying down and permitting a country whose people hate Americans to quietly take us over. Unbelievable.
As a well know leader said about another of our national enemies:
"Bring em on"
Who is "we" and do you have facts to back that up?
Immigrants suffer without driver licenses, he said.
The only reason an "immigrant" wouldn't have a license would be due to failing the test. Illegal aliens, on the other hand...
Same procedure as always for petitions for initiatives and recalls: the signatures must be from registered voters in the county listed on the petition, and the verification procedure depends on the total number of signatures -- usually with a 3% sample when there are at least 110% signatures.
We already give licenses/ID's to legal aliens, including those on nonimmigrant visas, such as foreign students, some of whom are ineligible to work.
Short-term visitors can drive using licenses from their home countries, preferably with an international drivers license or translation.
SB1160 is only for illegal aliens, who should not be here in the first place.
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