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Some workers paying a price for attending immigration marches

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 14, 2006

CHICAGO - Six employees at a seafood restaurant in Houston were fired this week after skipping work to take part in a pro-immigration march.

In Detroit, 21 immigrants lost their jobs as meat cutters after attending a similar protest last month.

Across the country, workers and students have paid a price for attending the immigration rallies that have recently swept the nation. They have lost jobs or been cited for truancy for joining the hundreds of thousands who have protested proposed federal legislation that would crack down on illegal immigrants.

In one case, the family of a 14-year-old Los Angeles-area boy said he committed suicide because he was threatened by a school official for participating in immigration protests. School officials disputed that.

Now, some rally organizers are telling people not to risk their jobs or education to attend the demonstrations and are considering rescheduling protests to weekends and evenings.

"This is a concern because this is a demographic of people who have historically not come out into the streets to raise an issue," said Germonique Jones, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Center for Community Change, an umbrella group behind the rallies. "Obviously businesses have to be run, and it's only right for people to tell their employers that they will be out beforehand. . . . We don't want people losing their jobs over this."

But many others say marchers want to make the sacrifice to show the importance of immigration reform.

In some cases, fired workers have been offered their jobs back after advocacy groups have gotten involved, including the 21 Detroit meatpacking company workers. The company said Thursday that it would rehire them, but only if the staffing company they were hired through can confirm they are legal immigrants.

Pedro Ortega, 30, was fired along with nine co-workers from an automotive parts factory in a suburb south of Chicago after attending a March 10 immigration march that drew more than 100,000 people.

A workers rights organization got involved and negotiated with Cobra Metal Works Corp., which rehired the employees, he said. The company said in a statement it supports immigration reform and will allow workers to speak out as long as they follow company procedures for taking time off.

Ortega, who has worked at the factory for eight years, said attending the march was worth the repercussions, and he plans to attend another rally in Chicago scheduled for May 1.

"We have to change the way the American people think about us," Ortega said. "We are here to work and to make our lives better."

Americans see illegal immigrants as using more services than they pay for and want the government to do a better job of controlling the borders, but they favor legal status for current illegal immigrants under specific conditions, according to national polls released this week.

About 6 in 10 Americans surveyed by CBS News described the problem of illegal immigration as very serious. Illegal immigration was characterized as "out of control" by 81 percent in a USA Today/Gallup poll.

And three-quarters of those questioned in an ABC News/Washington Post poll said the United States was not doing enough to keep illegal immigrants from entering the country.

But a Los Angles Times/Bloomberg poll found 63 percent of the respondents supported an approach that combined tougher enforcement of immigration laws along with a program of temporary work visas for illegal immigrants, while 30 percent would rather see the focus on tougher enforcement alone. The public is divided on whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to apply for permits to stay and work. In the CBS News poll, 49 percent said illegal immigrants should be allowed to apply, and 43 percent opposed the idea.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted April 6 to 9 with 1,027 adults, the CBS News poll April 6 to 9 with 899 adults, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll April 8 to 11 with 1,357 adults, and the USA Today/Gallup poll April 7 to 9 with 1,004 adults.

The four telephone surveys each have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

[Last modified April 14, 2006, 01:58:12]