Mexico Trucker Online

Nearly three decades ago, Salvador García spent a month desperately lost in the Arizona desert after an illegal border crossing into the United States.García, 13 at the time, said he barely survived the harrowing trek. He ate desert brush, drank his own urine and fended off coyotes waiting for him to succumb to the elements.

Saying he’s simply doing his part to keep others from having to similarly risk their lives, García, owner of Los Valles Produce on the Southwest Side, will not open his restaurant and store Monday.

Instead, he’ll give his 40 employees a ride downtown to join thousands of people expected to participate in a pro-immigrant rally and march. Similar events are scheduled throughout the country.

García also will support a call for a national boycott of economic activity as a way to press Congress to overhaul an outdated immigration system to make it easier, not more difficult, for immigrants to enter the country and work.

“I don’t want people to suffer like I did,” said García, 40, now a permanent U.S. resident. “I need to be out there to support my people, my brothers. America needs to see how badly we’re needed in this country.”

Unlike recent demonstrations in favor of immigration, Monday’s event has the boycott or “stoppage” as an added twist — and advocates are divided on whether it’s a good idea.

Organizers in San Antonio gave different turnout predictions, with estimates ranging from as few as 2,500 to as many as 20,000. Their counterparts in the Rio Grande Valley expect around 3,000 to march in Brownsville, McAllen and Port Isabel.

In Laredo, college students planned a protest at the federal courthouse. Across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo, activists passed out 3,500 fliers urging Mexicans not to cross into Texas on Monday.

As part of the boycott, immigrants and their supporters have been asked to miss work and abstain from spending money. Business owners are being encouraged to close shop and students to skip school — although San Antonio organizers say students should stay in class and join the march later.

Anticipating a potential shutdown, Cargill, the country’s second-largest beef producer, announced it will give more than 15,000 workers at all its meatpacking plants — including about 4,000 at its Texas plants in Plainview and Friona — the day off.

While businesses and workers throughout the nation, including San Antonio and South Texas, will heed the call, many others won’t.

On the heels of widespread workplace raids two weeks ago and subsequent rumors of more federal crackdowns, many undocumented immigrants don’t want to risk being noticed, caught and deported.

Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman in San Antonio for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants, said there are no plans to target marchers.

Agents don’t engage in racial profiling, and they would need to have solid reasons to determine protesters’ illegal status, said Pruneda, adding that many participants will be U.S. citizens or legal residents.

Some immigrant advocates against the boycott say it will hurt the people it’s designed to help.

Eliseo Medina, the Houston-based vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said he knows all about the power and impact of boycotts. But doing it on behalf of the pro-immigrant movement is a bad call because it could stain the sympathetic image immigrants have established with the public, he said.

“The mere talk of the boycott has changed the whole dynamic of the discussion,” he said. “It’s turning around a positive approach into a negative one, creating confusion and resentment.”

Plus, the attempt at stalling the economy will backfire because the businesses taking the hit are those that employ and serve migrant and Hispanic communities, said A.J. Rodríguez, president and CEO of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

It also sends a contradictory message by telling people who badly need work to risk getting fired, he added.

Even the Mexican government, which has not been shy about expressing its views on U.S. immigration policy and has asked to help shape new legislation, is concerned.

Officials in the Foreign Ministry said they’re not going to meddle, but they noted that the potentially harmful public perception over the matter could hinder ongoing U.S.-Mexico talks over a binational accord, said Roberto Rosas, a law professor at St. Mary’s University and an outgoing advisory council member for the government’s Institute for Mexicans Abroad.

In solidarity with U.S. activists, some students and traditionally leftist groups in Mexico City plan to boycott U.S. businesses as part of a “Nothing Gringo” campaign.

Leading U.S. migrant advocacy groups are taking a diplomatic approach over the touchy boycott issue. Local representatives of the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund asked participants to do what they think is best, but to consider the ramifications.

The message is quite different for youngsters: They’re being asked to not skip school or lead walkouts.

“They can join the rally after school,” said Henry Rodríguez, Texas civil rights director for LULAC.

The Northside Independent School District, the largest school system in South Texas, with 78,000 students, sent letters advising parents of a possible massive work disruption Monday that could leave students without a ride to school and without hot meals.

Not surprisingly, the pro-immigrant movement’s call for intensified protests, and now the economic boycott, is not without its external critics.

Feeling left out of the debate, many Hispanics, including immigrants, have launched a campaign to let the public know they vehemently disagree with calls for amnesty and expanded rights for undocumented migrants.

The “You Don’t Speak For Me” movement makes the point that not all Hispanics are “open border” advocates.

“I’m not the only Hispanic that believes in the rule of law,” said Peter Nuñez, a former federal prosecutor and assistant treasury secretary now retired in San Diego, Calif.

“There are many people who had to stand in line for years to get their green card and are raging mad over people hopping the border fence and asking for amnesty,” he said.