Contact: Megan Fountain, megan@ulanewhaven.org, 203-479-2959
Advisory for: Saturday, May 1, 3:00 pm, New Haven Green
March Will Demand Citizenship for Essential Immigrant Workers on May Day
WHO: Unidad Latina en Acción and labor, faith, and civil rights organizations
WHEN: Saturday, May 1. 3:00 pm speeches. 4:00 pm march. Closing with live salsa music.
WHERE: New Haven Green
New Haven, CT – Hundreds will march to demand a path to citizenship for essential immigrant workers this Saturday, May 1 at the New Haven Green. At 3:00 pm immigrants, public officials, and community leaders will give testimonies, at 4:00 pm hundreds will take the streets, and the march will conclude with live salsa music on the Green.
“This May Day, we demand full equal rights for the immigrants who have sacrificed everything so that others in this country could live,” said Juana Islas, a hospital cleaner who lives in New Haven and leader of Unidad Latina en Acción. “We call on President Biden and US Congress to create a path to citizenship for essential workers as part of this country’s economic and spiritual recovery. Anything less would be a moral failure.”
Undocumented immigrants are disproportionately represented in the “essential” industries that have suffered the highest rates of COVID mortality.[1] These deaths are not accidental, but they have been produced by anti-worker and anti-immigrant policies that have been deliberately advanced at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure that immigrant labor is super-exploitable and to exclude immigrants from health protections and safety nets including the CARES Act stimulus payments.
As President Biden makes the case for a national economic recovery that will invest in life-saving public infrastructure, protesters on May 1 will respond by demanding a recovery that includes amnesty and full equal rights for the immigrant workers who have sacrificed for this country.
[1] National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “Honoring The Fallen: An NDLON Report on the Impacts of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic on Immigrant Workers and People of Color in the United States.” April 28, 2021. https://ndlon.org/wp-content/
Photo: 2017 May Day march in New Haven