Immigrants take a day off

Restaurants closed, businesses were short-staffed and students skipped school Monday as thousands of people across Minnesota observed the national protest known as "Day Without Immigrants."

Immigrants and supporters held local rallies, but they were small compared with the hundreds of thousands who demonstrated in Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities and even the 30,000 who rallied in St. Paul last month.

Instead, the "Day Without Immigrants," designed to highlight immigrants' economic contributions, was characterized by absence. Some businesses that had expected to stay open found themselves without cooks, dishwashers and work crews. Sixteen of the 36 Chipotle restaurants in the state closed for the day.

In the Minneapolis public schools, at least 1,600 students didn't show up. The usually bustling Latino business district on E. Lake Street was a ghost town.

The economic effect of the national boycott is still unclear. But as a political message, it showed the continuing surge of organizing by supporters of citizenship for illegal immigrants, while further motivating those who favor a crackdown on illegal immigration. The demonstrators sought to influence the debate in Congress over those competing interests.

"We are not criminals," said Maria Garcia of Minneapolis, a retiree and legal immigrant who left Mexico seven years ago. She was among those who ignored the rain to attend a rally at Powderhorn Park in south Minneapolis.

Organizers said that at its peak, the park rally attracted 1,500 people.

A reporter saw about 700 to 800 people there between 5 and 6 p.m.

"We are honorable people," Garcia said. "We are workers who came here for our children."

For U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., the boycott was another argument for a tough stance.

"For many Americans, these demonstrations reinforce their frustrations with the unwillingness of their government to enforce the law," he said. "I don't think we can have serious discussions about any new laws until Middle America is convinced we will defend our borders and enforce the laws we have."

A question of retribution

For their part, some business owners just wondered how they would make it through the day Monday.

About 200 of the 800 workers at Bailey Nurseries in Woodbury didn't show up for work, said President Terri McEnaney.

Like many businesses, Bailey's planned ahead, surveying workers about whether they planned to work Monday. "We told them there would be no retribution," McEnaney said. "We just wanted to know."

Some businesses, such as the Swift & Co. meat processing plant in Worthington, decided in advance to close Monday, rather than try to operate with reduced staff. But other plants stayed open and reported no serious absenteeism.

"Both on the Hormel Foods side and on the Jennie-O Turkey side, we have really not seen an impact," said Julie Craven, a spokeswoman for Hormel. "All of our plants are operational. We do have some absenteeism in some of the plants but it's not significant."

In St. Paul, the immigration issue flared at college campus rallies and prompted grocery stores, bakeries and restaurants to close from the Hispanic-rich West Side to the downtown Chipotle.

"If I were a border patrol, I'd let everyone through, because these people leave Mexico with nothing to come here and work hard," said Becky Sorenson.

She was pushing a stroller with two of her daughters to the Don Panchos Bakery on Cesar Chavez Street -- only to be greeted with a sign reading Cerrado/Closed.

Schools noticed the absence

Attendance at schools with large numbers of immigrants was down sharply in the Twin Cities area. At Emerson Elementary, a Spanish immersion program in Minneapolis, Principal Luis Ortega estimated that about 200 students didn't come to school out of a total population of 550. Ortega was wearing white in support of the day. "That's a symbolic gesture," he said.

Meanwhile about 80 more students than usual were absent from Humboldt High School in St. Paul.

In the Robbinsdale school district, spokesman Jeff Dehler said about 80 percent of the Latino students in Armstrong High School's English Language Learners course were absent. Some had called in Friday and had their parents' permission, which would make their absences approved, he said.

At the College of St. Catherine, a nun from Veracruz, Mexico, named Naomi Gonzalez was among the speakers at a daylong rally. She had 10 students face each other with their palms out, representing a wall.

"Unjust economic structures are causing this immigration," she said, through an interpreter. "Walls aren't going to stop it. We have to turn the walls sideways and build bridges of solidarity."

Rally organizers at Powderhorn Park said they will meet May 13 to consider their next move. Said organizer Sophie Shank: "This is just the beginning."

Staff writers Curt Brown, Jim Walsh, Myron P. Medcalf, Dan Wascoe and Washington Bureau correspondent Aaron Blake contributed to this report. jhopfen@startribune.com • 612-673-4511; sbrandt@startribune.com • 612-673-4438; ddepass@startribune.com • 612-673-7725