LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles' first Latino mayor in the modern era, will skip huge pro-immigration rallies planned for Monday to meet with pro football officials in Dallas, leaving organizers feeling like "a ship without a captain."
Oscar Sanchez, an organizer of the Great American Boycott in Los Angeles, said the mayor's office previously told the group he would speak at a downtown Los Angeles rally on Monday -- then backed out.
Instead, the mayor will be in Dallas speaking with National Football League officials about the possibility of bringing a team back to Los Angeles.
Activists said the rallies, which could become the largest protests since the civil rights era of the 1960s, would shut down major U.S. cities and serve as an indicator of their economic power, with or without the mayor.
They have predicted that 2 million to 3 million people would flood the streets of Los Angeles alone.
"It has been advertised everywhere and he is the mayor of the second-biggest city of the country where a boycott is going to happen. It would feel like a ship without a captain," Sanchez said.
A spokesman for Villaraigosa said the mayor had never promised to be present at Monday's immigration rallies -- part of a nationwide boycott and demonstration -- and that his Dallas trip had been in the works for a long time.
Villaraigosa, the son of a Mexican immigrant, has long championed immigrant rights. But he has urged restraint in the May Day event, asking protesters to be "lawful and respectful" and children to stay in school.
"He is not making us, he is not breaking us," Sanchez said. "This march is about the people, not about the mayor. I'd be hurt if people didn't show up."
An immigration rally on March 25 in Los Angeles drew at least 500,000 people and was credited with rattling Congress as it debates the divisive issue.
Immigration has split Congress, the Republican Party and public opinion. Conservatives want the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants returned to Mexico and a fence built along the border.
Others, including President George W. Bush, want a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship.