‘A Day Without Mexicans' has message, but little impact

McALLEN — A protest dubbed “A Day Without Mexicans” could have devastated Rio Grande Valley retailers Thursday if people had participated in large numbers.

Ramiro Cienfuegos, president of the Reynosa Chamber of Commerce, said only a few Mexican nationals avoided crossing international bridges and shunned U.S. stores in protest of Arizona’s divisive new immigration law.

“This was above all a protest against the Arizona law,” he said. “A symbol.”

If successful, the boycott would have assailed stores in the U.S. But in an area where the economy is not bound by borders and Mexicans traditionally spend more than $1 billion per year shopping on the U.S. side of the frontier, the boycott appears to have been a small hiccup.

“Just look at La Plaza Mall and look at the license plates,” said Alberto Davila, chair of the economics department at the University of Texas-Pan American. “(They) will just basically postpone purchasing.”

Tamaulipas business leaders said they hoped Thursday’s boycott would not sever relationships with their Texas counterparts.

“This is not against Texas or the United States government,” said Alfonso Simon Treviño Salinas, with Nuevo Progreso’s chamber of commerce. “We are uniting with our neighbors, who also don’t want this law to prosper.”

Set to take effect in July, Arizona Senate Bill 1070 requires police to check for proof of citizenship or legal residency if there is a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country illegally.

Gov. Rick Perry has already said he wouldn’t support such a measure in Texas, and prominent law enforcement officials in the Valley have previously said they would never check for residency and become immigration police. To do so, they have said, would jeopardize other police work by making residents — some who are in the country illegally — afraid of turning to the police for help.

Steve Ahlenius, president and CEO of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, said while he understood the protest, it is misguided to punish South Texas businesses for the sins of Arizona.

“I can understand their frustration … but I don’t think anybody in our region would be supportive of that,” he said of the bill. “It’s not in the state of Texas, it’s not in this region, and I think it’s a little misguided.”

Mexican nationals spend a lot of money in South Texas. In a 2005 study by the Center for Border Economic Studies at UTPA, researchers concluded that Mexican nationals spent an estimated $1.1 billion in Cameron and Hidalgo counties in 2004.

Perhaps the boycott was not as successful as it might have been because fewer Mexican nationals are shopping on any given day due to violence in northern Mexico and the persistent recession.

“They’re not coming at all,” said Juan Treviño, an employee at Colors Name Brand Clothing in downtown McAllen.

Monitor staff writer Ana Ley contributed to this report.

Sean Gaffney covers McAllen, business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.