Photo by jenlund70/Flickr (Creative Commons)
The crowd at Olympic and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, May 1, 2008
As an immigrant rights marchers wind their way through downtown Los Angeles this afternoon in one of a series of rallies tied to May Day in L.A. and throughout the country, today marks the sixth anniversary of a historic event that drew hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the city’s streets.
That massive demonstration in 2006 took place at a time when hopes were high among immigrant rights activists that broad reforms to the nation’s immigration system were imminent. Resistance to enforcement-based federal measures (at the time, the ill-fated HR 4437) had spread, while the talk coming out of Congress during the Bush administration suggested bipartisan support not only for a guest worker program, but for earned legalization.
In Los Angeles and throughout the country that spring, rallies calling for immigration reform drew record crowds. On May 1, traditionally known as International Workers’ Day and celebrated as a “labor day” holiday in some parts of the world, immigrant rights organizers wishing to point out the connection between immigrant workers and the national economy organized what was called the “Great American Boycott.” The goal was for people to abstain from buying or selling, working or even attending school, anything that could demonstrate the power of immigrants. In Los Angeles alone that day, two related marches drew upwards of 650,000 participants.
The hoped-for reforms didn’t materialize, and since then, the immigrant rights movement has shifted, as has the political climate surrounding immigration. The latter has become increasingly enforcement-friendly, both in the states in the wake of Arizona’s SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law in 2010 and at the federal level, with deportations at a record high as the Obama administration embraces polices like the controversial Secure Communities fingerprint sharing program.
In response, immigrant rights advocates have regrouped around smaller, more tangible goals while at the same time building alliances, notably with labor and the faith community. The larger movement has also branched out into mini-movements at the grassroots level, with activists in many cases tailoring campaigns around social media as an alternative to marching in the street.
Just a few examples of where it’s gone since:
The youth movement surrounding the Dream Act
Perhaps the first large-scale immigrant rights push after 2006 went toward the federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. While the measure failed to clear the Senate in December 2010, what happened around it brought unprecedented developments in the immigrant rights movement. First, it drew in a large number of undocumented young people, youths who would have benefit from the bill, which proposed conditional legal status for those brought to the U.S. before age 16 if they went to college or joined the military.
The tactics changed as well. There were rallies, but civil disobedience in the form of sit-ins was coupled with “coming out,” young people going public with their immigration status as a political act, a move taken from the early gay rights playbook. After the federal Dream Act failed, the coming-out movement continued, with young activists rallying around state measures aimed at making college tuition less expensive for undocumented students, who in most states don’t get the breaks afforded to citizens and legal residents.
One victory this movement has claimed is passage last year of the California Dream Act, which allows undocumented students to access public financial aid, as other students have. There are also a series of stripped-down versions of the Dream Act being considered in addition to the original, some of which have generated a great deal of attention, if not as much support.
