Through the social network TikTok, influencer and activist Carlos Eduardo Espina has called for the campaign "a day without immigrants" in the country, in which he asks these people not to attend their jobs and not to buy anything next Monday, February 14th. 

Espina's request has been growing and gaining more followers, he said Thursday. 

Democratic Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, have shown their support for this cause in the networks, joining the other "thousands of people and businesses," Espina told Efe in a telephone interview from Texas.

The content creator added that even if they don't succeed in stopping the economy "at least we are already putting the need for immigration reform back in everyone's ears."

The beginning of the campaign

The idea began to take shape on February 1st and grew after Espina, 23, launched it on his TikTok account, where he already has more than 2.5 million followers.

The "A Day Without Immigrants" campaign seeks to create political pressure on Congress to finally bring about immigration reform that would guarantee status in the country to more than 11 million undocumented immigrants.

"We're not going to go to school. We're not going to spend it. Instead, we will take to the streets peacefully to raise our voices," said the young man.

Daniel Perez Listón, an economics professor, mentioned that "the contributions of immigrants in this country can be seen everywhere. From those who harvest the fruits and vegetables, to those who build the houses, to those who develop innovative technological products, such as Tesla cars."

According to Professor Perez Listón, the impact could be greater because of the pandemic, "we are short of employees so it could have a greater impact than in previous years."

In the United States, 14% of the population was born in another country. Of that total, about 31 million immigrants are legalized, nearly 12 million are not authorized to stay in the country.

"Of those 11 million, about 7-8 million of them work in the labor force, without benefits," said Perez Liston, who added that the Infrastructure Construction bill included an immigration element, "but unfortunately the Senate parliamentarian has removed any possibility of that immigration part of the bill because it is not economic, she has determined it that way".