Immigration Protests Take Toll on Immigrants
       After a weekend of “bracing” for the anticipated “Day without Immigrants” the day  came and went without any appreciable effect on business, retailers reported.
       The local organizers of the protest event had hoped that yesterday’s demonstrations would be a show of muscle of the immigrants’ rights movement in Massachusetts.  In a press release, director of the MIRA Coalition Ali Noorani stated "Immigrant and American-owned businesses have joined the action by either giving their immigrant employees the day off or closing their businesses in solidarity.”   Noorani claims that 17% of the workforce in Massachusetts are immigrants.
       Instead, it only appears that a number of Brazilian retailers and eating establishments were closed in Framingham.  A few paint retailers reported lower paint sales and some schools with a high ethnic student population had higher absenteeism.  
       Immigrant owned contracting companies will likely buy their materials today (Tuesday) that they would have bought Monday, so larger retailers will suffer no net loss.  The only businesses that won’t be able to recoup the money they lost on Monday, ironically, will be the immigrant owned restaurants.  Individually, workers who are paid by an hourly wage (which is the case with most immigrants), took the day off and won’t get that day back either.  Thus, the only people that got hurt financially were the immigrants themselves. 
        To compound the cost to the immigrants, the protests have spurred a degree of anti-illegal  backlash all over New England. Jim Rizoli, a vocal critic of illegal immigration, said: "They want to bring attention to their situation, but a lot of people are getting mad. Illegals are demanding, not asking. They're demanding rights that are not theirs."