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The Great American Boycott (known in Spanish as El Gran Paro Estadounidense, "the Great American Strike") a one-day boycott of United States schools and businesses by immigrants, both legal and illegal, of mostly Latin American origin that took place on May 1, 2006.

Boycott organizers to coincide with May Day, the International Workers Day observed as a national holiday in Asia, most of Europe, and Mexico, but not officially recognized in the United States due to its Communist associations.

The organizers called for supporters to abstain from buying, selling, working, and attending school, in order to demonstrate through direct action the extent to which the labor obtained of illegal immigrants is needed for the economy of the United States. Supporters of the boycott rallied in major cities across the U.S. to demand general amnesty and legalization programs for such non-citizens. For this reason, the day is referred to as A Day Without an Immigrant in reference to the 2004 political satire film A Day Without a Mexican.

The boycott was announced on April 10, 2006 in Los Angeles, California by the March 25 Coalition of Catholic groups, immigration advocacy organizations, and labor unions. Hermandad Mexicana, an affiliate of the Mexican American Political Association, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Amigos de Orange, and local MEChA chapters all promptly joined. It was coordinated nationally by the May Day Movement for Worker & Immigrants Rights.


The coalition arose out of protests against H.R. 4437, a legislative proposal that was passed by the United States House of Representatives on December 16, 2005 by a vote of 239 to 182, only to die in the United States Senate by not being brought to the floor before the 109th Congress ended. This bill would have made residing in the U.S. illegally a felony and imposed stiffer penalties on those who knowingly employ and harbour noncitizens illegally. It also called for the construction of new border security fences along portions of the 2,000-mile United States–Mexico border. The coalition takes its name from the date of the first mass protest against the bill, a day which saw upwards of 500,000 demonstrators on the streets of Los Angeles, as well as hundreds of thousands in other major U.S. cities. The March 25, 2006 protests were noted for their peaceful nature, despite the controversy surrounding the immigration issue.