May Day in much of the rest of the world has been celebrated as the traditional holiday for labor and workers. In 2006, May Day became the day when over a million immigrants and illegal aliens took to the streets to protest portions of the legislation that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives which would make all illegal aliens "felons" and that they all be deported.

In South Florida a series of protests took place, starting in the farming community of Homestead, and then outside the Orange Bowl, with a final rally at Josi Marti Park. The rallies and marches involved somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people, and constituted the largest protest in South Florida since the Elian Gonzalez saga.