NEW YORK -- Now that immigrants have grabbed the nation's attention, backers of efforts to legalize undocumented workers are divided about how to keep their movement going.
Today has been set aside for immigrants to boycott work, school, and shopping to show how much they matter to their communities. But with some growing tired of street protests, and others afraid they will be deported or fired for walking out, some people are planning to support the effort in other ways.
Rallies, voter registration drives, and religious services have been organized in many states, including Massachusetts, so people can show their support without engaging in an economic boycott.
Some will work but buy nothing today. Others will protest at lunch breaks or at rallies after work. There will be candlelight vigils, picnics, and human chains.
The range of activities shows both how powerful the immigrants' rights movement has become in a matter of weeks, and that organizers do not have a consensus on its next step.
''It's highly unpredictable what's going to happen," said Harley Shaiken, director of the Center for Latin American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. ''What unites everyone . . . is they are making visible their strong feelings."
Some supporters of legalization, including prominent Hispanic groups, fear that the boycott on work and spending might be a tactical blunder.
Unleashing a boycott now ''would be throwing the atomic bomb . . . the last weapon in our arsenal," said Jaime Contreras, chairman of the National Capital Immigration Coalition. His group, which turned out hundreds of thousands of marchers for an April 10 rally on the National Mall, is not asking supporters to skip work or school.
''We will carefully watch movement on the Hill and will reserve the tactic of a strike if and when it is most necessary," Contreras said.
The real need to flex political muscle may come later this year -- when congressional negotiators meet to reconcile the Senate's expansive vision of the immigration law overhaul with a narrower House bill that tightens the border, criminalizes illegal immigrants, and cracks down on rogue employers.
''Any kind of action or strategy that could give us a negative backlash of some kind is unhelpful in passing the legislation we need," said Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who traveled last week to Washington to lobby the White House and Congress for passage of a legalization bill. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops urged immigrants to attend Mass instead of boycotting.
President Bush, who says he supports a comprehensive immigration overhaul, said Friday he opposes the boycott.