The rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol filled with protesters rallying against
anti-immigrant legislation. (photo: unknown)
20,000 Protesters Oppose Scott Walker's Immigration Bill
19 February 16
n Thursday, 20,000 demonstrators took to the Wisconsin capitol to oppose Governor Scott Walker’s Arizona-style immigration bill. The bill, Assembly Bill 450, represents a broadside assault on the civil rights of undocumented workers: Walker’s bill would allow police throughout the state to investigate people’s immigration status, arrest undocumented individuals, and ultimately deport them. How this bill would necessitate racial profiling was captured by one white protester’s sign, which quipped, “I IMMIGRATED TO AMERICA WHEN I WAS 11. WOULD YOU ASK ME FOR DOCUMENTATION?” 
Two protesters hold up signs in front of the Wisconsin Capitol building. (photo: Ken Klippenstein/RSN)
Another less expansive bill, SB 533, which protesters also opposed, would block counties statewide from giving out local ID cards to people who cannot obtain state IDs. The protest included business closures, work stoppages, and student walkouts across the state.
Luz Sosa, a professor at Milwaukee Area Technical College, told Fusion this protest was important because it would “let people know how much Latinos contribute to this state.” Wisconsin’s large dairy industry relies heavily on Latino workers, and yesterday’s walkout was expected to have a large impact on the industry.
The protest was given the name “A Day Without Latinos” by Voces de la Frontera, the Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group that organized the protest.
The vast majority of demonstrators were themselves Latinos, carrying homemade signs saying things like “WISCONSIN IS NOT ARIZONA” and “SEPARATING FAMILIES IS LIKE TERRORISM.” In Spanish, they chanted things like “Yes we can!” and “The people united will never be defeated!”
Man holds up a sign showing opposed to the Arizona-style anti-immigrant bill, which Scott Walker is expected to sign. (photo: Ken Klippenstein/RSN)
Demonstrators hold up a sign while marching around the Capitol Square in Madison, WI.
(photo: Ken Klippenstein/RSN)
(photo: Ken Klippenstein/RSN)
Some white people attended the protest as well, in solidarity with undocumented workers. One carried a sign that read, “ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM. NATIVE AMERICANS USED TO CALL IT ‘WHITE PEOPLE’”; another read, “SKIN COLOR IS NOT REASONABLE SUSPICION. STOP RACIAL PROFILING.”
A Women holds a sign in the march against Scott Walker's anti-immigrant bills. (photo: Ken Klippenstein/RSN)
Despite the protest being so large that police blocked off the entire Capitol square, there was surprisingly little media coverage. RSN observed only one media vehicle.
The passage of the two immigration bills in the Wisconsin lower house follows calls from Republican front-runner Donald Trump to deport 11 million undocumented people, many of whom are Latinos. In July, Trump doubled down on his discriminatory rhetoric by saying that many Mexican immigrants to the US are criminals, rapists, and drug smugglers.
Then on August 25, Donald Trump booted well-known Mexican journalist Jorge Ramos out of a press conference when Ramos asked him about his plan to deport 11 million undocumented people. Mr. Trump told Ramos, “Go back to Univision,” which struck some as sounding similar to “Go back to Mexico.”
Just today, Pope Francis criticized Donald Trump, saying he “is not Christian” if he calls for the deportation of undocumented immigrants and pledges to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.
However, it’s not just extremist Republicans who are attacking Latinos. Obama recently launched “mass deportation” raids across the US, targeting refugees fleeing the extreme violence of Central America. Deporting people back to these conditions puts their lives in very serious danger. For this reason, activists, lawyers, and prominent people in the Latino community have criticized these deportations. These raids have created immense fear and anxiety, which have reverberated throughout the immigrant community.
As Wisconsin looks to pass anti-immigrant legislation similar to Arizona’s, it should look at the results in that state. Business leaders say the anti-immigrant reputation of Arizona has hurt the economy. One progressive think tank found that an immediate consequence was the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in canceled conferences.
Scott Walker’s Wisconsin, which has had dismal economic performance, may want to listen to Glenn Hamer, the president of Arizona’s Chamber of Commerce. Hamer says, “Any community that experiences a burst of immigration experiences an economic renewal – that’s almost an iron law.”
A number of studies back up the idea that immigrants are extremely beneficial to our economies. Professor of Law Francine Lipman found that the idea that illegal immigrants take more in public services than they contribute is “undeniably false.”
According to Lipman, illegal immigrants “actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services” and “contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs.”
Professor Aviva Chomsky of Salem State College came to similar conclusions: “Early studies in California and in the Southwest and in the Southeast [found that] immigrants, legal and illegal, are more likely to pay taxes than they are to use public services. Illegal immigrants aren’t eligible for most public services and live in fear of revealing themselves to government authorities. Households headed by illegal immigrants use less than half the amount of federal services that households headed by documented immigrants or citizens make use of.”
Ken Klippenstein is an American journalist who can be reached on twitter @kenklippenstein or via email: kenneth.klippenstein@gmail.com
Paul Gottinger is a staff reporter at RSN whose work focuses on the Middle East and the arms industry. He can be reached on Twitter @paulgottinger or via email.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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