The racialization of migrants is constitutive of the socio-political and economic order in the United States. Racial violence has been and continues to be a fact of life for Mexican and Latino migrants in the United States. In 2006 ‘illegal’ migrants throughout the United States rose up to challenge the processes of dehumanization they face on a daily basis. The central question of this study is what compelled ‘illegal’ migrants to organize resistance leading to the marches of 2006? Was this a response to a single external threat? Or was this act of resistance linked to or informed by previous historical struggles of Mexicans and Latinos in the US? In surveying the phenomenon of 2006 while advancing a conception of resistance within the Mexican and Latino community, this study will attempt to link the processes of racialization and their socio-political construction of ‘illegal’ subjects to the formation of migrant resistance.