The politics of migration

In the spring of 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and supporters organized in cities across the United States to protest recent changes to immigration policy. Those protests, labeled “A Day Without an Immigrant,” called on immigrants and their children to boycott their jobs and schools for a single day in an effort to both demonstrate their opposition to the harsher, more restrictive HR 4437 legislation, and to show the force of their economic power as workers and consumers.With each election, the debate surrounding immigration reform continues to grow. The fate of millions of hard-working families hangs in the balance as well-funded anti-immigration groups like the Minutemen and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) rally public and congressional support for their closed borders campaigns.