Last Sunday, May First, was International Workers Day, and was a national day of action for the immigrant rights movement, with events taking place in 39 cities in 17 states as part of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, FIRM, and We Are Home. In Wisconsin, a two-day statewide series of actions was organized by the Milwaukee=based immigrants right group Voces de la Frontera. People from around the state gathered in Milwaukee to repeat basic demands: On the national level, sepakes demanded fulfillment of the promise of President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats to legislate a path to citizenship for all immigrants, to abolish the discriminatory 287g program that allows state and local agencies to act as immigration enforcement agents, shut down for-profit detention centers, expand Temporary Protected Status and other protections for immigrants already living in this country, and calling on the repeal of the Trump administration’s Title 42 anti-refugee program.
Rosalind Medrano, a Latina essential worker in the cleaning industry and a member of SEIU Local 1, spoke at the start of the march in front of Voces de la Frontera offices on Historic Mitchell Street in Milwaukee. Medrano is translated by Nikki Hertel-Meirose of Voces de la Frontera.
The estimated crowd of almost 4000 then left Historic Mitchell Street to begin the over three-mile march to the office of US Senator Ron Johnson, whose vote against immigration reform insured its one-vote loss in the Senate. Steve Shea, the Committee on Political Education chair of American Federation of Teachers Local 212, representing Milwaukee Area Technical College, explained why he and others in his union were there marching on Sunday.
The crowd rallied again in front of the building on Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Avenue housing Johnson’s office, packing the city block. Speakers included Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz. Here is Wisconsin worker Israel Pena, speaking to the post-march crowd.
But the action was not over. The next day, Monday, May Second, over 300 people form across the state packed the rotunda and mezzanines of the capitol building here in Madison, as part of a statewide lobbying day to demand restoring state driver licenses and IDs, and expanding in-state tuition equity to immigrants. Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes was among the speakers, reiterating the Evers’ administration support of these legislative maeasures. Much of the crowd was made of local students, including Madison high schools East, La Follette, and Memorial, Middleton High School, and even a teacher-led group of pupils from Madison’s Carl Sandburg Elementary, who on Monday struck their classes to march downtown to the capitol, filling the streets of Capitol Square and the capitol building itself. Brayan Carreras Garcia is a senior at East High School who will attend UW-Milwaukee, and is a member of Raza United. Carreras Garcia, an organizer of the large student walkout on Monday, had this to say.
That was Brayan Carreras Garcia, a senior at East High School and one of the organizers of Monday’s mass student strike in the Madison area. Monday’s statewide gathering at the capital followed Sunday’s May Day march in Milwaukee, all a part of the Day Without Latinx and Immigrants, Wisoonsin’s effort in a national day of action for immigrants rights.
Reporting Courtesy of Greg Geboski for Labor Radio
Image Courtesy of Fibonacci Blue on Flickr
