EL PASO TIMES

April 23, 2006

Migrant farmworkers at
Sin Fronteras will boycott

While pro-immigrant activists around the nation are debating whether to put muscles behind a proposed boycott May 1 and support in El Paso is lukewarm at best, migrant farmworkers at the Sin Fronteras center in Downtown El Paso said they won't go to the fields that day.

Center director Carlos Marentes said he believes the action, dubbed "A Day Without Immigrants," would demonstrate the crucial role immigrants play in U.S. agriculture and call attention to the workers' poor working condition.

Nationwide reports of workers fired because they missed work to participate in recent immigration rallies will not intimidate farmworkers, who work mostly as day laborers, Marentes said.

"What do they have to lose? A miserable pay and a space on the floor to sleep," he said.