The
Racist War On Immigrants
By Stephen Lendman
30 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Emma
Lazarus' memorable words on Lady Liberty's pedestal once had meaning
as a new nation grew. No longer in a country hostile to the tired, the
poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse, the homeless and many
others not making the grade in a white supremacist Judeo-Christian state
worshiping wealth and privilege. No welcome sign is out for the unwanted
poor and desperate. At best, they're ignored to subsist on their own.
At worst, they're scorned and abused, exploited and discarded like trash
or labeled "terrorists" in a post-9/11 world of mass witch-hunt
roundups aimed at Muslims because of their faith or country of origin
and Latinos coming north to survive the fallout from NAFTA's destructive
effects on their lives.
Immigrants of color, the
wrong faith or from the wrong parts of the world are never greeted warmly
in "America the Beautiful" that's only for the privileged
and no one else. They're not wanted except to harvest our crops or do
the hard, low-pay, no-benefit labor few others will do. The ground rules
to come were set straight away in our original Nationalization Act of
1790 establishing the first path to citizenship. It wasn't friendly
to the wrong types as permanent status was limited to foreign-born "free
white persons" of "good moral character," meaning people
like most of us - our culture, countries of origin, religion and skin
color.
Left out were indentured
servants, slaves, free blacks, native Americans being exterminated,
and later Asians and Latinos whose "appearance" wasn't as
acceptable as the whiteness of English-speaking European Christian settlers
and the mix of others from Western European countries like Holland,
Germany and Scandinavia. The law scarcely changed for 162 years until
the 1870 15th amendment loosened it enough to include blacks by 1875,
no longer slaves but hardly free and in 1940 gave Latin Americans the
same right. After the war in 1945 it extended it further to Filipinos
and Asian Indians. Original native Americans, whose land this was for
thousands of years, only were enfranchised and given the right of citizenship
in their own land when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in
1924 after most of them were exterminated in a genocidal process still
ongoing, never mentioned in the mainstream, and for which no redress
was ever made or likely will be.
The 1952 Immigration and
Nationality (McCarran-Walter) Act (INA) only grudgingly did what no
law before it allowed. For the first time it made individuals of all
races eligible for citizenship but imposed strict quotas for those from
the Eastern Hemisphere with different standards for caucasians from
the West. But nothing is ever simple and straightforward in "America
the Beautiful." In the early Cold War atmosphere of Joe McCarthy's
communist witch-hunts, anyone accused of leftist sympathies could be
targeted, and any alien so-tagged could be deported, and like today
no evidence was needed.
From the INA to the present,
immigration laws kept changing for better or worse, but one thing was
constant. White Christian Western Europeans are welcomed. Others, especially
people of color or the wrong religion, get in grudgingly in lesser numbers
and receive unequal or harsh treatment when they arrive. The 1996 Immigrant
Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) and Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act (AEDPA)proved it showing Democrat presidents can be as mean
and nasty as Republicans, especially with help from a Republican-controlled
Congress.
The 1996 acts were ugly and
repressive ignoring the rights of due process and judicial fairness.
They allowed Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents to
detain legal immigrants without bond, deport them without discretionary
relief, restrict their access to counsel, bar them from appealing to
the courts, and can be applied for even minor offenses little more than
youthful indiscretions. These laws under a Democrat president "feel(ing)
our pain" showed no more compassion or equity than later ones under
George Bush in force today. They allow no second chances and deny targeted
legal immigrants their day in court. Their harshness tears apart families
unjustly made to suffer by a nation hardening its stance to the wrong
kinds of immigrants. They're sent an unwelcome message now much worse
in the age of George Bush with his permanent wars on the world and homeland
"terrorists" meaning anyone called that on his say alone.
It started post-9/11 with
the 2001 USA Patriot Act even harsher in its updated Patriot Act II
version. Enacted to combat "terrorism," it's done on the border
with more guards to spot, detain, arrest and incarcerate Latinos entering
the country for a way to survive. For being undocumented and on the
pretext of being suspected "terrorists," they may be indefinitely
detained or deported the way it works under any despotic national security
police state. It's even worse for Muslims, 5000 of whom were rounded
up and held early on with only three of them ever being charged with
an offense. And it got far worse for them after that still ongoing.
Today, federal immigration
courts can hold secret hearings for anyone here illegally or charged
with a law violation, no matter how minor. Those convicted can then
be incarcerated or deported to their country of origin often to face
arrest and torture. It's now open season on anyone targeted with legal
protection no longer shielding innocent victims Justice Department (DOJ)
or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) go after. They includes poor
and desperate mostly undocumented Latinos from Mexico and Central America
coming el norte because NAFTA, CAFTA and other neoliberal unfair trade
agreements called "free" destroyed their ability to earn a
living at home leaving them no other choice but come north or perish.
It shouldn't be that way,
and promises were made early on that "free trade" lifted all
boats with higher wages and more jobs. Instead millions of jobs were
lost while real wages fell under the effects of a globalized market
system crafted for investor elites to profit at the expense of ordinary
working people paying the price. They've been devastated since by a
sustained massive wealth transfer to the top of the economic pyramid
that in the US alone has been a generational process of well over $1
trillion annually to corporations and the richest 1%.
For the past 13 years, NAFTA
and the rest of globalized trade provided cover for imperialism on the
march for power and profit. It prospers from economic and shooting wars
of conquest with an engineered race to the bottom driven by giant predatory
corporations allied with friendly governments in their service at the
expense of ordinary working people paying the price. The result - mass
and growing poverty, human misery, and ecological destruction great
enough to threaten the ability of the planet to sustain life.
Blame it on the globalized
market system. It's the main reason millions around the world are on
the move each year as reported by the International Labor Organization.
In 2005, the number reached an estimated 200 million fleeing poverty
and conflicts, often leaving families behind, heading for developed
countries for jobs and safety unavailable at home.
The toll South of the Border
alone after 10 years of NAFTA was devastating on Mexico's poor and getting
progressively worse.
-- Real wages down 20% and
the wealth disparity between rich and poor far greater than in 1994
(NAFTA's first year).
-- Two - three million small
farms now gone with Research Director Raul Hinojosa of the North American
Integration and Development Center at UCLA predicting 10 million small
farmers will eventually be forced off the land, many heading north in
desperation.
-- Mexico's banks, railroads,
airlines, mines and other industry sold off to foreign investors, mainly
US ones with possible plans under the new Calderon government to sell
off the country's crown jewel - Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the state-owned
national oil company up to now kept free from Big Oil predators itching
to get their hands on the company and now may have their chance.
-- Two million hectares of
tropical forest turned over to private developers displacing many thousands
of people to make way for "development" and clear-cutting
forests.
-- Crushed homegrown industries
unable to compete against subsidized US giants like behemoth Wal-Mart
(Wal-Mex) now the country's largest private employer and biggest retailer
in Latin America.
The Message to Immigrants
On Our Southern Border - No Vacancy, or Enter As Indentured Servants
with No Rights
Post 9/11, the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 was passed establishing the repressive Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) and in March, 2003 its largest investigative and enforcement
arm - the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) charged
with protecting the public safety by identifying and targeting "criminal"
and "terrorist" threats to the country, most of whom, in fact,
are just desperate people whose NAFTA-ruined lives at home force them
el norte to survive.
ICE was established to head
them off at the border or hunt them down ruthlessly once here. It's
comprised of four integrated divisions with responsibilities over the
nation's infrastructure, economic security, transportation system and
the subject of this essay - policing our southern border with Mexico
going after people the color of the earth victims suffering for what
we did to them by our made-in-Washington trade and other unfair economic
policies. So the gloves are off, anything goes, and ICE is free to rampage
with its large share of DHS's total budget now up to $43 billion, heading
for $46.5 in the president's submitted FY 2008 budget.
On the Homeland Security
web site, ICE openly boasts about what it should be condemned for. At
FY-end 2006 on October 30, it listed what it called "historic results
(and) new records for enforcement activity" including:
-- Total work site arrests
sevenfold greater than in FY 2002.
-- Ended the former practice
of "catch and release" ICE called "the greatest impediment
to border control." It substituted the harsher practice of catch
and incarcerate or catch and deport - or hound, threaten, catch, brutalize,
incarcerate, then deport victimized people who'll try again to survive.
-- Removed a record high
number of 186,000 "illegal aliens" and increased its detention
bed space by 6300 to a FY-end total of 27,500 with an average daily
number of incarcerated or detained immigrants up to 26,000 since July
and rising.
-- Increased the number of
"fugitive operations teams" nationwide from 18 to 50 charged
with locating, apprehending and removing "criminal aliens"
meaning alien victims called criminals. Through its Operation Return
to Sender, ICE arrested 14,356 aliens and deported 4716 of them from
May 26 to September 30, 2006. ICE intends having 75 teams operating
by end of FY 2007 to up the numbers considerably which they'll do.
-- Created a national center
operating at all ICE detention facilities to deport "criminal aliens"
when released from incarceration. Most will be back.
-- Completed a record high
number of "arms and strategic technology" investigations by
doubling the number of personnel assigned to do them and by implementing
new electronic data entry procedures to track immigration "violators"
and "fugitives."
-- Claimed it dismantled
the large Colombia Cali drug cartel to stem illegal narcotics trafficking
while failing to acknowledge other US agencies, most notably CIA, have
a long sordid history of drugs trafficking worldwide as an important
revenue source with CIA now partnered with Northern Alliance warlords
in Afghanistan (among others around the world) having turned the country
into a narco-state, according to a UN report, supplying 92% of the world's
opium used for heroin.
-- Conducted financial investigations
of human smuggling and other immigration related cases resulting in
asset seizures of $42 million or double the amount gotten in FY 2004.
-- Through its Operation
Community Shield arrested 3700 since February, 2005 including 2290 suspected
"gang members."
-- From worksites, arrested
716 workers (and a few employers getting mere wrist slaps) on "criminal"
charges and 3667 individuals on "administrative" charges -
a sevenfold increase in total arrests from FY 2002.
-- Worked with Department
of Justice (DOJ) in document and immigration benefits fraud cases resulting
in 235 investigations, 189 arrests and 80 convictions.
-- Expanded its partnership
with state and local authorities training 40 state and county law enforcement
officers as part of the 287(g) program of immigration enforcement with
additional partnerships to come.
ICE listed a disturbing array
of other FY-end 2006 "achievements" involving enhanced intelligence
gathering and analysis; targeting "national security threats;"
detecting, tracking and arresting visa violators; "enhancing border
security;" targeting transnational gangs, human smugglers and sexual
predators; targeting money launderers and others committing financial
crimes while granting de facto immunity to large US banks, including
major international money center ones, known to launder drug money as
one of their major profit centers; and much more.
DHS/ICE Billions
for the Border
With a budget increased by
50% over five years ago, DHS/ICE has billions to use guarding our borders
from "dangerous" poor people. Ignored is that those working
here pay billions more in federal, state and local taxes for performing
services (in jobs others don't want) than they get back in meager benefits
like sub-standard education for their children in inner city or other
public schools and inadequate health care when they're sick.
Still they come from need,
not choice in a risky, dangerous journey starting with what it costs
for help getting here. It's plenty extorted by Coyote smugglers and
other predatory intermediaries treating them like pollos (chickens)
once on their way north. They get crammed in trucks and cars, travel
after dark, and aren't prepared for the hazards they'll face including
115 degree or higher summer temperatures crossing an unforgiving desert
that end up killing hundreds each year from exposure who when found
are just anonymous John Does leaving families behind never knowing what
happened or what to do next.
And handling those risks
depends on getting past heavy DHS/ICE border security in place post-9/11.
They're ready and waiting with video cameras, state of the art motion
sensors, infrared goggles, other security electronics and helicopters
with forward-looking infrared (FLIR) scopes plus an unforgiving thuggish
army of 6000 or more National Guard troops as part of Operation Jumpstart.
They supplement the Border Patrol agent staff of 12,349 heading for
17,819 proposed for FY 2008, double the number it had in FY 2001.
Add to this army an extremist
well-funded volunteer force in place called the Minutemen Civil Defense
Corps (MCDC) or "Minutemen" for short. Their name comes from
those "ready in a minute men" dating back to the mid-1600s
when volunteers were trained to be first on the scene to defend their
communities in case of conflict. Today's Minutemen on our southern border
are for offense, not defense. All they defend is white supremacy and
racial hatred against poor, desperate people unable to survive at home.
Left no other choice, they come north, but doing it pits them against
these ultra-hard right volunteer paramilitary thugs licensed to kill.
They man the southern border by the thousands hunting down and terrorizing
anyone caught entering the country without visas.
They're supported by other
anti-immigrant hate groups and organizations like the Federation for
American Immigration Reform (FAIR, not to be confused with the noted
media watch group using the same acronym standing for Fairness &
Accuracy in Reporting). The racist FAIR is lobbying Congress for repressive
immigration legislation that will deny Latinos and others coming here
basic civil and human rights by stepping up harsh border security, increasing
Gestapo-like crackdowns against those already here, and giving predatory
corporations the right to exploit the ones allowed in or manage to come
anyway. The fate of millions of honest, hard-working immigrant families
depends on exposing and stopping the kind of work these groups do and
what they stand for.
In spite of them and all
the other hazards they face, and word gets back about them, the courageous
poor keep coming for a better life to support their families usually
left behind desperate for whatever aid their loved ones can send back.
No amount of manpower, security and technology in place can stop them.
Those caught and sent back try again, eventually circumventing the obstacles
against them on a near-2000 mile long border, all of which can't be
patrolled. But that takes them into the harshest stretches of desert
many each year never leave. And still they come, risking everything,
tens of thousands each year, their numbers growing as NAFTA and neoliberal
market-imposed rules leave them no choice - head north or perish.
Congressional Reform
or Deform in 2007
Things could change if trade
was fair, not unfair, under made-in-Washington one-way "free trade"
rules legalizing unfairness, especially in areas like agriculture so
crucial to millions of small farmers in developing countries like Mexico
forced off the land unable to compete against heavily subsidized US
agribusiness. But carrots aren't on the legislative docket in Congress,
only assorted sticks in the stalled compromise immigration bill providing
no relief the way things are progressing so far in both Houses.
So-called "immigration
reform" stalled last year after the House passed the repressive
HR 4437 Sensenbrenner bill, The Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and
Illegal Immigration Act of 2005, in December, 2005. It was a law only
racists and hatemongers could love. It galled, or embarrassed, enough
senators to clean it up some and pass S 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration
Reform Act or Hagel-Martinez bill last May. It was still bad enough
to create a permanent underclass of low-paid workers, allow employers
the right to exploit them, place restraints on wages and benefits, and
create a nightmarish multi-tiered bureaucratic structure for temporary
partial legalization leaving out of the mix millions of undocumented
workers already here and delaying citizenship for those eligible for
almost two decades.
Workers, most unions and
others for immigrant rights oppose this bill, but shamefully it's supported
by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE HERE representing
hotel, food service, apparel, textile and gaming industries with both
unions sacrificing their members' rights for whatever the leadership
gets from collaborating with employers and Washington.
Proposed Immigration
Legislation Includes A New Bracero Program
New immigration legislation
proposed in Congress leaves in it most of the harsh measures in S 2611
including a new temporary or guest worker plan with shades of the infamous
Bracero Program in force from 1942 - 1964. It created a system of indentured
servitude ongoing to this day, even after its official end, with an
army of serfs with no rights giving employers the legal right to exploit
over 4.6 million Mexican migrant farm workers. They were denied basic
rights; got only temporary, low-wage jobs; often were cheated out of
pay earned; held in virtual captivity by employers seizing their documents;
denied the right to change jobs freely; forced to live in squalid conditions;
denied medical care or benefits for injuries received; forced to endure
severe harassment and oppression from employers knowing they could ship
braceros home whenever they complained too much about what they had
plenty to complain about. It happened in 1954 when a recession triggered
a political backlash against Mexican communities resulting in the deportation
or flight of over one million Mexican migrant workers and their families
under Operation Wetback including children born here as US citizens.
Today, 120,000 foreign guest
workers receive temporary H-2 visas established under the Immigration
Reform and Control Act of 1986 for farm and other low-skilled work (H-2A
for farm and H-2B for the rest), usually for three to nine months, under
conditions similar to the former Bracero Program under which they were
mistreated and cheated on entry, while here and on the way out in a
cycle of abuse sure to be repeated if a George Bush-style guest worker
program becomes law. Even professional workers are harmed under the
H-1B program assuring they, like non-professionals, are marginalized
and mistreated under a system where employers control everything, and
workers are just indentured servants with no choice but to take it or
leave it and go home.
Immigrant rights groups oppose
the legislation, and the National Alliance for Immigrants' Rights wants
full legalization for all immigrant workers in the country and a halt
to all raids and deportations - provisions not in the compromise bill
and unlikely to be added. Fear of arrest haunts the undocumented at
a time when terrorism in the news trumps immigrant worker rights, especially
Latinos (and Muslims) getting none.
That came out in a scathing
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) report based on thousands of guest
worker interviews and dozens of legal cases documenting appalling abuses
of vulnerable immigrants unable to get redress. SPLC's Immigrant Justice
Project director, Mary Bauer, said: "Guest workers are usually
poor people who are lured here by the promise of decent jobs. But all
too often, their dreams are based on lies, their hopes shattered by
the reality of a system that treats them as commodities. They're the
disposable workers of the global economy." SPLC president Richard
Cohen added: "The mistreatment of temporary workers in America
today is one of the major civil rights issues of our time."
New Senate and House immigration
bills will soon be debated including bipartisan legislation unveiled
March 22 in the House by Latino Democrat Luis Gutierrez and Republican
Jeff Flake. Sadly, it's little more than the usual "same old, same
old." In this case, it's largely a rehash of last year's stalled
S 2611 bill that rightfully is sure to mobilize immigrants' rights groups
against it. It proposes a repressive guest worker bracero program with
provisions allowing those qualified to get three year visas renewable
for another three years after which workers would be forced to go home.
To be eligible, immigrants would have to learn English, pass criminal
and security checks and pay back taxes ignoring the fact that most all
undocumented workers already pay taxes, give far more than they get
back, and are honest hard-working people.
To get a green card then
and be eligible for future legal residency (only for those arriving
before June 1, 2006), they'd then have to go home (under the so-called
"touch back" provision) and start again. They'd also have
to pay a $2000 fine and prove to authorities they're model material
enough to qualify to stay here. More than half the bill is even more
repressive. It contains harsh provisions for stepped up DHS/ICE (paramilitary)
border security above what's now in place with more manpower and a multi-billion
dollar high-tech border surveillance "shield" now under construction.
Other provisions include a mandated biometric system employers must
use to verify workers have legal status while overall this bill, like
the others from both Houses, contains a corporate wish list at the expense
of undocumented Latino immigrants it wishes to exploit. In short, it's
appalling and will surely be opposed on the streets en masse around
the country in the spring and summer.
This proposal and others
will be on the docket in both Houses for debate in coming weeks with
final resolution planned for late spring or summer unless protest opposition
delays it again or defeats it. Neither House version improves much over
what stalled legislatively last year, and only mass civil rights protests
like the historic ones in dozens of cities last spring have a chance
to do it or find a way for real immigration reform benefitting people,
not the special interests exploiting them with help from Congress and
the administration.
Support for continued exploitation
is driving the political process, even from unexpected places showing
how long the odds are for legislative justice. It's coming from the
National Council of La Raza, "the largest Latino civil rights and
advocacy organization in the United States (working) to improve opportunities
for Hispanic Americans." NCLR reaches millions of Hispanics in
and outside the country. It was founded in 1968 by noted labor organizer,
community leader and author Ernesto Galarza who wrote about braceros
being "indentured aliens" and prototypical "production
(men) of the future" stripped of all political and social rights
in what he called an "input factor" to suck worth from and
discard. He and labor leaders like Cesar Chavez and others all campaigned
to end the program.
His organization today, under
President Janet Murguia, is now an apologist for corporate America lobbying
for braceros at home like the ones they exploit around the world in
a global race to the bottom affecting working people everywhere. In
a February 11 Washington Post op-ed piece, she wrote her "organization
and many (unidentified) Latino leaders (support) a significant new worker
visa program as part of comprehensive immigration reform." Incredibly,
Ms. Murguia denounced the original bracero program for its abuses while
advocating a new version of the same thing now. It's no surprise because
NCLR also supported NAFTA before it passed opposing US and Mexican labor
and community-based organizations against it at the time for all the
damage it would do now apparent.
The new guest worker program
NCLR supports, in proposed House and Senate legislation, will embrace
all the faults of its bracero predecessor. It will create a large desperate,
defenseless immigrant workforce vulnerable here to the same kinds of
abusive exploitive practices corporate giants inflict on their overseas
workers - denying their right to organize, receive fair wages and benefits
or be guaranteed basic civil and human rights everyone should have by
law. These rights can only come through legislation guaranteeing all
immigrants permanent legal residency, a fairly defined path to citizenship,
and provisions for family members to immigrate so they all can be together.
Immigrant and other civil
rights groups also need to lobby and protest for repeal of the 2006
Deficit Reduction Act denying immigrants the right to receive Medicaid
that's also harming tens of thousands of poor US citizens having trouble
complying with new requirements. They include showing passports or a
combination of an original or certified copy of a birth certificate
and driver's license proving their legal status in the country. This
is another example of the Bush administration's racist war on Latinos
and the poor with Congress going along in a long-term bipartisan effort
to roll back the country's social safety net till nothing in it remains.
It's time human, civil rights and other progressive organizations of
all stripes mounted a combined effort to fight back, no longer being
willing to see the social state destroyed in service to wealth and privilege
at the expense of society's most vulnerable that includes the immigrant
population giving America back much more than it receives and now getting
even less.
They may also have to take
on another potential opponent - the nation's oldest and best known environmental
group, the Sierra Club founded in 1892 by noted naturalist writer and
wilderness preservationist John Muir, that's up to now been neutral
on immigration but no longer. It's leadership split on the issue with
one side called Support US Population Stabilization (SUSPS) focusing
on population control that includes restricting immigration to preserve
the environment. So far, there's no resolution and internal debate continues,
but it needs watching as it's a slippery slope from advocating responsible
world population growth to one focusing on US immigration that always
means those of color, the most vulnerable, and mainly desperate and
impoverished Latinos forced here by made-in-the-US predatory trade and
other neoliberal policies leaving them no other choice. That should
be the Sierra Club's target, not the innocent victims of bad policies
coming here to survive them.
In the Meantime -
Terror Raids in the Workplace Continue
Workplace assaults targeting
immigrants continue as part of a generational war on labor including
the right of workers to organize and bargain on equal terms with management.
They're also part of the Bush administration's campaign for a government-controlled
(exploitative) new bracero guest worker program explained by DHS secretary
Michael Chertoff's message (through the media) to Congress for the need
for "stronger border security, effective interior enforcement and
a temporary-worker program (because) businesses (needing) foreign workers....can't
otherwise satisfy their labor needs (so government must help out with)
a 'regulated' program." He also told reporters in Mexico City February
16...."total immigration reform (addressing) migrants is actually
an enforcement enabler because it lets us focus more on the people that
we don't want....criminals and dangerous folks" - racist code language
aimed at Latinos. It's meant to sanction DHS/ICE detentions and deportations
and allow employers the right to abuse and fire Latino workers on any
pretext as part of an endgame strategy, Operation Wetback-style.
The plan is a shocker. It's
to mass-remove an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants by 2012
while allowing others under captive contacts to stay as exploitable
guest workers. This was what immigration reform legislation was all
about in 2006 to be repeated when debate begins again in both Houses
and a final bill emerges showing both parties support corporate interests
and will affirm their right to exploit all working people, starting
with guest workers. Part of it includes Chertoff and ICE assistant sectretary
Julie Myers unleashing a paramilitary-style reign of terror against
so-called illegals or undocumented immigrants in the workplace aimed
at easy-to-target Latinos. Both parties want to assure businesses have
a large exploitable documented temporary worker pool they can use as
needed, abuse as they wish, underpay, deny benefits and above all use
as a wedge to destroy organized labor and the rights of all working
people in the country.
This is what the racist war
on immigrants is all about. It's to empower employers by creating a
workplace of unempowered serfs including US citizens with few or no
rights or job security at the mercy of business to hire and fire at
will and treat their employees as they wish written into the law of
the land. It's to create a "bracero America," corporate America's
wet dream.
The Bush administration is
using high-profile workplace assaults as a sinister strategy to get
it. Complicit with them are the corporate media trumpeting the message
that desperate Latinos here for jobs to replace ones NAFTA destroyed
are threats to national security. It happened last December 12 in the
largest ever workplace raid when ICE storm troops swooped in on Colorado-based
Swift & Company targeting six of its plants. Agents rounded up 1282
allegedly undocumented immigrant workers, including 170 accused of identity
theft, detained them at the plants, then bussed them across state lines
to be processed with most later released far from home. The raids were
vicious and racist as are all others around the country targeting immigrants
of color. The Hispanic National Bar Association reported December 18
"non-Latinos and light-skinned employees were provided blue wristbands
which exempted them from questioning, while Latinos, persons perceived
to be of Hispanic or Latino origin, underwent immigration processing
(the notion being that) all persons perceived to be Latinos are illegal."
Most immigrant workers at
Swift and around the country are impoverished-by-NAFTA Mexicans or other
Latinos driven North for jobs in desperation resulting from the Global
North's failed neoliberal agenda. They're helpless victims of savage
capitalism forced to leave home, exploited in the workplace, and terrorized
by Homeland Security ICE storm troop enforcers earning their keep at
the expense of ordinary working people targeted as criminals because
they're less white than other workers passed over in the raids.
But that's not how DHS and
corporate media trumpeting characterized the victims. ICE and its media
mouthpiece claimed the raids were a major victory in the war on illegal
immigrants, and by implication the so-called "war on terror"
(against innocent people they call "terrorists)." The United
Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) representing
Swift workers scoffed at the claims as outrageous denouncing them saying
they're "not an effective form of immigration reform (and) They
terrorize workers and destroy families." ICE also trumpeted a (hollow)
victory against criminal elements supplying phony IDs that could also
be used by "terrorists" or as part of an identity theft scheme
victimizing many thousands of US citizens and lawful residents.
It was subterfuge and part
of the current political climate with headline-making theatrics more
important than defending the homeland against legitimate threats. It
showed in the aftermath of this hugely expensive ICE operation amounting
to little more than a PR stunt providing red meat for hard liners wanting
their kind of immigration reform meaning no rights for workers, especially
ones of color. The raid ended up netting 65 "criminal arrests,"
many for minor offenses like reentering the country after being deported,
a technical violation rarely resulting in prosecution. The others were
shipped around the country and likely released except for those voluntarily
agreeing to be deported.
The December Swift raid was
the largest ever, but immigrant workers everywhere have reason to fear
the same threat that was repeated against meatpackers from Smithfield
Foods' processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, the largest hog
processing plant in the country. Most of its workers are African-American
and Latino, and hundreds of them defied plant management's refusal to
give them the day off by rallying in nearby Fayetteville honoring Martin
Luther King Day January 15.
Retaliation came January
24, when ICE agents raided the plant arresting 21 immigrant meatpackers
on trumped up "administrative immigration charges" meaning
they were poor Latinos vulnerable to ICE assaults made to send a message.
DHS supports management rights, not those of working people. The Tar
Heel plant's 5000 workers have been trying to organize within the United
Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) since the early 1990s, but are opposed
by management and its policy of retaliatory firings, intimidation, and
beatings by plant security. Smithfield like other corporate giants plays
hardball. So doesn't ICE acting like Gestapo ruthlessly assaulting working
people with special viciousness reserved for vulnerable Latinos (and
Muslims) having no defense.
Still another ICE assault
the AP called "the largest immigration bust in the history of southern
Massachusetts" happened March 6 against Michael Bianco, Inc. in
New Bedford, MA, a manufacturer of high-end leather goods now producing
safety vests and backpacks for the military. In this case, conditions
for workers were deplorable, according to US Attorney Michael Sullivan,
who called them similar to the sweatshops of the early 1900s. He arrested
and charged the owner, three managers and another employee but freed
them pending a court date for hiring undocumented immigrants. It's likely
outcome will be the way it usually is for corporate offenders - a small
wrist slap fine....case dismissed.
Hundreds of workers weren't
so fortunate with as many as 350 of them apprehended and initially detained
at Fort Devens for processing. From there, some were jailed in Massachusetts
and Rhode Island, others released, and most were flown to jails in Texas
and a few to Miami, far from their families and facing deportation or
incarceration for those unable to prove they're in the country legally.
Most are poor Latino women from Central America. In the meantime, as
in other raids, parents and children are separated and traumatized,
their lives disrupted with an estimated 100 children in this instance,
including nursing infants, left stranded with babysitters and caregivers.
Many will end up at the mercy of strangers in foster care, uncertain
of their parents' fate only here to earn enough to support them. Left
unmentioned is that those born here are US citizens entitled to the
constitutional rights they'll never get because they're less-than-white
poor Latinos.
One other example deserves
mentioning as well as it's now in the news. This one is in Pascagoula,
Mississippi where hundreds of guest workers from India are protesting
job conditions at Signal International's Gulf coast shipyard they compare
to slavery. Signal brought in about 300 Indian workers in December and
another 300 to work in Texas as part of the H-2B visa program. Workers
got promises of pay and working conditions Signal reneged on plus workers
having to pay recruiting contractor Global Industry (sent by Signal
to India) up to $20,000 to come. They were promised $18 an hour for
up to 30 months work but most only got half that amount. They also had
to pay Signal $35 a day to stay in company labor camp barracks inside
the yard where workers described conditions as "very bad (with)
24 of us....in a room in a barracks that measures 12 feet by 18 feet,
sleeping on bunk beds (with) two toilets for all of us and only 4 sinks."
Workers began meeting at
a local church to discuss how to get Signal to refund their contractor
fee, which they said the company promised to do, and to protest their
working conditions. They organized a group called Signal H-2B Workers
United. When the company learned of it, it responded harshly calling
the workers unqualified and cutting their already lower than promised
pay. In addition, eight were declared completely incapable and told
they were being sent home immediately. Outside the yard, dozens of workers
and community supporters protested denouncing the firings and mistreatment.
So far, nothing is resolved, but the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance
and Southern Poverty Law Center are going to court on behalf of the
fired workers to stop their deportations. Other workers still employed
are continuing their actions challenging Signal to refund their contractor-paid
money they're entitled to receive with that issue possibly heading for
court as well.
Plants like Signal's involved
Indian workers and wasn't raided because workers in it were legally
recruited by the company. Others, however, employing Latino immigrants,
are savagely assaulted, and so are communities with programs for day
laborers like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles
targeted in January by ICE sweeps in Southern California Latino neighborhoods.
Coalition leader Antonio Bernabe told Reuters "The police didn't
just take people with deportation orders, they took anybody--guys who
were just hanging out in the street and even from a Jack in the Box
restaurant....and now people are afraid to go out." The sweep aimed
mainly at Latinos, mostly Mexican nationals, sent a message following
George Bush's State of the Union address calling for "comprehensive
immigration reform" combining a (mean-spirited) guest worker (bracero)
worker program with tougher workplace and border enforcement meaning
it's open season on Latinos and working people overall.
Immigrant Communities
and Supportive Organizations Respond
Immigrant communities and
organizations are fighting back against ICE rampaging terror raids and
are rallying their members and supporters to take a stand. The Immigrant
Solidarity Network is promoting May Day 2007 and a National Mobilization
to Support Immigrant Workers Rights calling for a "national day
of multi-ethnic unity with youth, labor, (and) peace and justice communities
with immigrant workers and building (a)new immigrant rights & civil
rights movement."
Proudly and boldly they proclaim
"We are all human! No one is illegal! It's call to action stands
for:
-- No anti-immigration legislation
or criminalization of immigrant communities.
-- No militarization of the
border with fences or other barriers.
-- No more immigration detentions,
deportations or funding for immigrant detention centers.
-- No oppressive guest worker
two-tiered program allowing employers the right to pay visa workers
lower wages, provide no labor protections, and offer little or no right
to future US citizenship.
-- No employer "no-match"
Social Security letters to fire immigrants and repeal of employer sanction
law.
-- Yes to a clear, fair one-tiered
path for undocumented workers to gain legal status and an opportunity
for citizenship.
-- Yes to family reunifications
through additional visa numbers and elimination of long family reunification
backlog delays.
-- Yes to strengthening existing
labor law protection to include all immigrant workers including their
human and civil rights.
-- Yes to the right to organize
and bargain collectively on equal terms with management.
-- Yes to the Dream Act with
provisions for states to aid immigrants with benefits like providing
in-state tuition aid and enable students of good moral character to
qualify for legal residency.
-- Yes to extending benefits
to LGBT immigrant families, passing the Uniting American Families Act
for same sex and unmarried partners, and lifting the HIV ban on immigration.
Other organizations as well
are working for immigrant rights. They include:
-- The Mexican American Legal
Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). It calls itself the most influential
Hispanic advocacy group in the country standing for open-borders and
for all legal and undocumented immigrants to be entitled to the same
rights as US citizens.
-- The Puerto Rican Legal
Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF). It calls itself the most important
organization for day laborer rights in the Northeast standing for real
immigration reform so that millions of the undocumented have a clear
path for legalization and citizenship.
-- The National Network for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR). It's a broad-based organization
advocating for immigrants, refugees, community, religious, civil rights,
labor and activists. It promotes a just immigration and refugee policy
defending and expanding the rights of legal and undocumented immigrants
and refugees.
-- The American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee (ADC). It advocates for people of Arabic origin harshly treated
post 9/11 and was a co-plaintiff challenging Section 215 of the Patriot
Act allowing for government access to medical, educational and library
records relating to "terrorism" investigations or others claimed
for national security. At least two ADC chapters publicly condemned
immigrant apprehensions, detentions, disappearances, the denial of legal
representation, and "secret military (or other) tribunals calling
these actions chilling "similarities to a police state."
-- The Muslim Legal Fund
of America (MLFA). It calls itself the most effective legal fund in
the country committed to preserving, safeguarding and promoting the
civil and legal rights of American-Islamic institutions and Muslim Americans.
-- The Coalition for the
Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI) formed in response to increased workplace
raids by the INS, now DHS/ICE. It advocates for undocumented immigrants'
labor rights (mainly Mexicans) confronting "anti-immigrant policies
through grassroots education and action."
-- The Immigrant Legal Resource
Center (ILRC) - an organization involved in training more than 800 nonprofit
personnel and attorneys in areas of immigration law including naturalization,
deportation defense, ethics, and Delayed Enforced Departure. It condemns
the harsh practices now employed against immigrant communities and in
the workplace as unconstitutional.
Street Protest Actions
with More Planned
Protests for immigrants'
rights are beginning in cities around the country like the week of them
in the San Francisco Bay Area from February 26 through March 2. Throughout
the week, community leaders, people of faith, labor leaders, teachers
and youths rallied against ICE raids and guest worker programs speaking
out for "yes to legalization for all (undocumented workers)."
Similar actions are planned
elsewhere including in Chicago by a group called the March 10 Movement
named after the 500,000-strong largest ever protest in the city held
on that date in 2006. They'll include rallies for passage of real immigration
reform including a path to legalization for all undocumented workers
and an end to detentions and deportations. The first of the planned
marches was held on March 10 - of course - in the city's downtown area
to be repeated each week "until there is a real solution"
from Congress, signed into law. If they follow through, it will mean
a long spring and summer of protest marches.
Last year's mass Chicago
march inspired millions of immigrants and supporters to rally in cities
around the country that helped defeat the worst parts of anti-immigration
legislation mostly crafted in the racist House Sensenbrenner bill now
a dead letter. Since then, however, no progress for reform has been
made and pending action from the compromise House-Senate bill and most
recent new House proposal will continue an ongoing war on immigrants
only mass opposition street protests have a chance to stop the way last
year's actions achieved modest success now stalled and slipping.
That's how things are now
in a nation dedicated to permanent war, a bipartisan criminal class
in Washington beholden to capital, and workers everywhere losing out
in a race to the bottom. Poor Latinos (and all Muslims) face some of
the worst of it, and those in Mexico and Central America face a Hobson's
choice. Wither at home under NAFTA and CAFTA or try making it north
to suffer abuse and neglect in an uncaring state dedicated to keeping
its tired and poor and huddled masses permanently that way. That's the
message from Congress in the kind of "immigration reform"
being crafted, but Latinos and others on the streets have other ideas.
At over 45 million strong,
Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in the country and fastest
growing with its Mexican component rising fastest of all. Nowhere is
this more apparent than in California where about one-third of all Latinos
live and make up over one-third of the state's population of 36 million.
It's even more pronounced in Los Angeles where Latinos are now a majority
providing a future glimpse of America with this group becoming more
dominant than ever but still marginalized, demeaned and denied real
equity and justice in a country clinging to its Christian white supremacist
roots.
That can only change with
mass civil disobedience street protests, employer boycotts and a campaign
targeting Congress for justice long delayed and denied and now demanded
in the current legislative session. Real change never comes from the
top down. It's always from the bottom up that's unstoppable when enough
people mobilize in the streets and halls of power for it.
That's where things now are
entering spring that promises months of rallies and protests around
the country. With enough of them, Congress might start hearing the Immigrant
Solidarity Network's message that "We are all humans (and) no one
is illegal," and the one from the Mexican American Political Association
that Mexican and Hispanic people want and deserve the same constitutional
and democratic freedoms all others in America are entitled to. That's
what they say and want. Now they're coming out again demanding it. Stay
tuned.
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman
News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com online live each Saturday
at noon US central time.
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