Community group calls for boycott to fight mass immigration arrests, deportations

LOS ANGELES - Members of ‘Committee for Autonomous Social Action’ (C.A.S.A.-HGT), a community-based organization, are calling for a 72-hour boycott to fight what they describe as a national anti-immigration campaign of mass arrests and deportations.

They're calling on people to take part in a three-day nationwide consumer boycott from May 1 through May 3.

Carlos Vellanoweth, an immigration attorney and coordinator for C.A.S.A-HGT, says "the time has come to have our labor and our purchasing power do the talking for us." 

The announcement was made in front of a mural depicting "Virgen de Guadalupe" which adorns one of the walls of Our Lady Queen of Angeles Catholic Church in Plaza Olvera in downtown Los Angeles.

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The church was a center for immigration sanctuary in the late 80s and 90s. At the time, Father Luis Olivares opened the church to Central American refugees, especially those from El Salvador and Guatemala, who were not granted refugee status by the Reagan administration. During that time, well-known actors like Martin Sheen would take part in what was known as the Wednesday morning coalition, which protested in front of the church.

FOX 11's Christina Gonzalez covered his arrest at the church when he and Father Olivares would stand in the way of immigration agents trying to detain the many immigrants that filled not only the patio, but the church pews, even the basement. 

Jose Calderon, a professor at Claremont Colleges, remembers being here during those protests. He said that part of him cannot believe he's back in the same place fighting the same battle, but he also said he finds inspiration in the large protests that he now sees fighting immigration arrests.