If you happen to be in Washington DC, New York City or a few other major metropolitan areas today you may find some of your favorite restaurants and watering holes closed. No, it’s not a national holiday that you forgot about which is causing either the doors to be closed or the facilities to be on reduced service schedules. Activists who oppose the president have started yet another online “movement” in an attempt to disrupt normal services. In a highly dishonest and misleading campaign, they have declared today to be “a day without immigrants.” (New York Times)

In a city where expense account meals are a central part of power players’ lives, some of Washington’s best-known restaurants will close their doors on Thursday in solidarity with a national campaign to draw attention to the power and plight of immigrants.

The campaign, spread on social media and messaging apps, has called for a “day without immigrants.” It asks foreign-born people nationwide, regardless of legal status, not to go to work or go shopping in a demonstration of the importance of their labor and consumer spending to the United States’ economy.

Activists and groups in cities across the country have picked up the call, reposting fliers found online, and in some cases organizing demonstrations to coincide with the event. Several activists said that they did not know how the campaign began or how many people would heed it, and that as far as they knew, there was no national organization behind it.

The fact that the participants are engaging in this tactic is perhaps not nearly as dismaying as the way the media is gleefully picking up on the story. Were there any honest reporting going on the New York Times and their colleagues in the mainstream media, they would be mentioning the fact that the entire premise of this campaign is fundamentally fraudulent. The organizers are encouraging everyone who is an immigrant “regardless of their legal status” to stay home from work today. The clear implication here is that all immigrants should be opposed to Donald Trump’s policies regarding illegal immigration.

This is not simply misleading, but rather an act of fraud. I have yet to meet a single person among the ranks of conservatives concerned about border security who is opposed to legal immigration or fails to value the contributions of those who come to our country following well-defined rules to make a new life. Further, the “disruption” they are seeking could be generated by targeting any demographic group in the nation. A day without women, without Jews, without left-handed people or even, yes, white folks, would result in what the New York Times describes as a “hit to the stomach.”

The truly nauseating portion of this is the fact that the entire concept is an insult to those who followed the rules, came to America and made a new life for themselves. This so-called protest is encouraging them to lose a day’s pay on behalf of those who refused to follow the rules and continue to break the laws set forth under the Constitution which naturalized citizens have sworn to defend.

But what the heck. Let them hold their protest, put a dent in everyone’s profits and bask in the glow of media adoration which will surely follow. Who cares if it makes any sense? There are political points to be scored.