‘A day without a latino’

Thousands took part in a march through the streets of Milwaukee this Thursday in a protest called “A day without a latino”, in an attempt to prevent Congress from taking harmful measures against undocumented workers.

Police calculated that some 10,000 people took part in the protest and marched to the city centre. However, the organizers of the event placed the figure around the 30,000 mark.

“We have come to work, not to be discriminated against”, pointed out Juan Hernández, who said his boss had authorized him and other workers from the same restaurant to participate in the protest.

“We want to be treated with equality”, Hernández added. Some 90 businesses, run by Latin Americans in the southern sector of the city were closed during the day or for several hours in support of the protest.

The protestors are opposed to legislation, approved in December by the House of Representatives that would make being in the USA illegally a crime.

Accordingly, employers who take on illegal immigrants would be subject to new sanctions and the law would provide support for the construction of a wall along a third of the border with Mexico.

The name of the protest was taken from a fictional documentary “A day without a Mexican”, which simulates what life in California would be like if all latinos suddenly disappeared.