Immigrants in New York city joined a nationwide boycott called "A Day Without Immigrants" Monday in a bid to show the importance of immigrant workers to the U.S. economy and ask for legalization of illegal immigrants.

In each of New York City's five boroughs, hundreds of immigrant workers and their supporters took work breaks shortly after noon to link arms with their supporters along city sidewalks.

"This will symbolize the interdependence of all of us, not just immigrants, but all of society," Chung-Wa Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition said earlier.

Over 100 Chinese American business people,wearing white T-shirt with the slogan"Stand up for Immigrants," gathered at the statue of Lin Zexu, a Chinese national hero who led the campaign to ban opium imported by the British traders, for a protest rally. Some elected officials, including Congresswoman Nydia Velazqez, and Manhattan President Scott Stringer, were also present to show their support for the immigrants.

In her speech, Velazqez said the existing immigration system cannot be fixed by setting up walls along the borders and deporting illegal immigrants. The issue before the whole nation is not about party politics, or elections, but what is right for America as a nation.

At 12:16 p.m.demonstrators formed a human chain and began to march along East Broadway for about 20 minutes to commemorate Dec. 16, 2005, when the U.S. Congress passed a bill that seeks to make illegal immigrants felons. Steven Wong, President of Lin Zexu Foundation, USA, said this action is taken to show solidarity of immigrants from various countries and as a gesture that we will break the conventional chains that take immigrant workers as scapegoats while exploiting their labors.

Chen Qingyuan, Chairman of the United Chinese Associations of Eastern USA, noted that most immigrants are law-abiding and hard- working people who have contributed a great deal to the United States. It is unfair to treat them as criminals.

In the afternoon, hundreds of immigrants, most of them from Mexico and South American countries gathered at Union Square for a protest rally. Demonstrators carried posters that read "We are not criminals," "Stop HR4437" and waved U.S. flags and their

respective national flags.

Wearing a fireman helmet, fireman Paul Gonzalez said almost everybody in the United States is an immigrant in a sense. Immigrants have the right to a better life. They should not be criminalized. "That's why we are here today to stand up against the HR4437," he said.

One immigrant activist spoke at the rally after another. After the rally protesters marched along Broadway to the federal buildings in lower Manhattan.

Protest organizers have asked immigrants across the country to skip work, school, and even shopping Monday. But worrying boycott may alienate business leaders, some are choosing less contentious way of participating the protest. Many students joined marches rallies at after school hours, others took short break to form human chains as a gesture of support. But some business closed altogether to support the boycott. A big 99c store in Jackson Height, closed door with a sign that read "We are closed today because we want to support our neighborhood."

Similar protests and boycotts were planned in many other cities across the United States on Monday.

Source: Xinhua