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EDITORIAL Editorial The Sleeping Giant Published: April 29, 2006 On Monday, if many immigrant advocacy groups get their wish, America will awaken to a disturbing silence. Shops and offices will not open, factories will be idle, and classrooms and restaurants will empty out. The nation will rattle with the emptiness of millions of immigrants not working, not shopping and not going to school. The noise is supposed to come later, when many of those same immigrants hit the streets, protesting and chanting in a continental chorus of complaint. Their din will be joined by a moan rising from the rest of America, newly exposed as a fat, immobile queen lost without her worker bees. The shaken nation then will buckle and pass forgiving laws that loosen its borders and grant the 11 million to 12 million illegal workers their rightful place in the American landscape. That's the plan, anyway. But a few things are seriously wrong with it. The groups that chose May 1 for a day of boycotts and rallies for immigrants' rights were emboldened by a miracle of grass-roots mobilization that turned a shadow population into a national movement in less than a month. But many outspoken defenders of the immigrants' cause are drawing a distinction between peaceful rallies and punitive boycotts and work stoppages. They say, rightly, that immigrants should not try to inflict pain on this country just to prove how much they love it. Those who argue for aggressive confrontation point to the civil rights era, when another supposedly powerless minority found the strength to upend an exploitive system that dangled the possibility of hope while mocking and thwarting it. But that is a superficial comparison. Segregation denied the legal rights and full humanity of American citizens. It was a brutal regime that had to be dismantled. By comparison, current and proposed immigration laws — even the most punitive ones — are at worst foolish, impractical and ungenerous. But they are not Jim Crow. To say otherwise is to trivialize evil. Today's immigrants and their allies have a different, but no less admirable, mission than the 1960's protesters. They are calling on the nation to improve its laws, to draw on a rich tradition of tolerance in devising a fair, decent solution to a complex problem. Whether Monday's protests stumble or soar, participants should strive to avoid damaging their worthy cause. Boycotts and walkouts could cause many struggling workers to lose their jobs, send students the wrong message about the importance of education, give the Minutemen and talk-show morons a chance to strut and preen, and unnerve and embolden the lawmakers who are itching for a simple crackdown. This is perilous business: there are signs that fear has already given the boycott a perverse head start. Recent rumors of federal immigration crackdowns appear to have driven thousands of illegal immigrants further underground. There needs to be a lot of heavy lifting and delicate consensus building to achieve comprehensive immigration reform. Sleeping giants can, and should, get moving. But they should tread carefully.