The
War On Immigrants
By Stephen Lendman
11 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
"Give
me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Once that was true,
but no longer. Emma Lazarus' beautiful and memorable words we've all
heard many times and know well are fading into memory. If we're honest,
they should be removed from "Lady Liberty" and be replaced
with something like: We'll take your Anglos, especially well-off ones,
and the ones we choose with needed skills; you keep the rest, especially
your poor, dark-skinned and desperate. We needed 'em once for our homegrown
sweatshops. No longer. We've got plenty all around the world. It now
looks like we'll make an exception though for the menial or toughest
low pay, no benefits, no security jobs no one else wants. We're still
debating it and will let you know.
Think they'll ever affix
anything like that to the Lady's pedestal? Fat chance. Whatever may
emerge from the Congress, how would they ever explain the hypocrisy
of our once warm welcome and now cold shoulder and callous rejection
of immigrants. The fact is there are now fewer decent jobs to go around
for a growing population. We thus need to curb the foreign inflow, and
most wanting to come here don't have the right skills or connections
and aren't the "right" color. We don't say that publicly,
but honesty isn't a trait this country is noted for. Neither is honor,
integrity or practicing the high principles we espouse. Strip off the
mask, look hard at the cold, ugly face beneath and uncaring eyes and
see a heart of stone and not a sign of a soul.
Long ago we were building
a new nation, needed lots of labor and threw open our doors. Now we
can be as picky as we choose and even slam the door and bolt it, except
for the special skills we need or the few privileged we always welcome
who can jump the queue to get in. We still need lots of help to pick
strawberries and cabbages, make beds and clean commodes and so far have
allowed the undocumented ones who make it here to stay for that kind
of work few others want. But racist and far-right lawmakers in the Congress
with a pathological desire to guard our borders like Fort Knox and close
them to people with dark skins we denigrate or label potential terrorists
are in a dog fight now with less extreme but hardly moderate voices
there. So far we don't know who'll win or if it will be a draw to be
replayed at a future time. We do know that if even the best of the current
proposals now being debated becomes law, future immigrants, those wishing
to come, and the undocumented already here will be the loser.
We also know that quality
job opportunities for most working people in the country including high-paying
manufacturing jobs have been disappearing for years as well as many
other good ones we now export to low wage countries. These jobs are
routinely shipped abroad to exploit the sweatshop labor there where
live bodies, desperate for any work and having to endure terrible on-the-job
abuse, can be hired for pennies on the dollar and no benefits or pesky
unions compared to manufacturing and labor rates here and what goes
with them. So are many other lower level white collar service jobs that
can be done anywhere. Even the higher paying ones aren't immune like
those in high tech where skilled professionals can be hired in "all
you can eat numbers" in countries like India at quarters on the
dollar. What corporation hungry for profit could pass up a deal like
that. Never mind that doing it hollows out our economy and puts us on
the road to third world status just like those other nations whose workers
are rplacing ours.
Besides well-paying construction
jobs and some others, what's left here are mostly lots of low-wage service
jobs. These are the unexportable kind at Walmart (the nation's largest
employer), McDonald's or menial hotel or restaurant services (plus those
strawberry and cabbage pickers) with few or no benefits and often little
chance to organize in unions for higher pay, better benefits and worker
protection. Other than those, our message now is keep your people at
home. We can use 'em right where they are. No need to pay 'em much,
pennies an hour will do, forget any social benefits and no need to worry
about those annoying unions. None allowed in sweatshop countries like
China, Bangladesh, El Salvador or Haiti. When any do spring up in places
like Colombia, all you need is a corporate friendly, anti-union president
willing to sell out his people to US interests, make the country friendly
to giant US transnationals like big oil, and allow paramilitary hired
killers free reign to have at as many socially-mnded "troublemakers"
as possible "eliminating" them and intimidating the rest.
That way you can get all the cheap labor you want there practically
for nothing. Can't beat a deal like that, so why let 'em in here. We're
trying to hold down the number of "undesirables" we've now
got so there aren't too many around to become restive and cause trouble.
It helps when we can recruit a lot of them to go fight and die for us
in our imperial wars. But we're handling the surplus by locking up as
many as we can in prison cells for any reasons we can justify passing
new laws to allow it. With 2.1+ million already behind bars (the largest
prison population in the world - two thirds of them black and Latino)
and adding about 900 more a week it seems to be working very well thank
you very much. At least so far. I've written at length about this horror
under the radar in my article titled "The US Gulag Prison System"
- the one at home.
Unlike long ago, the land
that once welcomed your tired, poor and huddled masses now has hung
out a "no vacancy" sign, is hostile to the undocumented forced
to come here because of our destructive trade policies impoverishing
them, the many legitimate arrivals already here and contributing more
than they get back, and is pretty nasty to the least advantaged who
were born here, especially if they're dark-skinned. As things now stand,
what's ahead is only likely to get worse.
ONCE WE WELCOMED
THOSE HUDDLED MASSES
For well over a century we
were a growing nation thriving on the influx of welcomed immigrants.
At Ellis Island alone (where my ancestors passed through a century ago)
over 12 million of them entered the country between 1892 (when it opened)
and 1954 (when it closed). This country was founded and built by immigrants
- from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown in the 17th century to Ellis Island
up to a half century ago. The numbers were impressive and came in three
great waves:
1. About 5 million from 1815
- 1860, mainly English (on my father's side), Irish, German, Scandinavian
and northwestern Europe.
2. About 10 million between
1865 (post Civil War) - 1890, again mainly from northwestern Europe.
3. About 15 million from
1890 - 1914, many from Austro-Hungary, Turkey, Lithuania (on my mother's
side), Russia, Greece, Italy and Romania. Many Eastern European Jews
fleeing religious persecution like my maternal ancestors came in this
wave. Thankfully they did and made it. Otherwise it's likely they"d
have met their fate either at the hands of Stalin or Hitler.
Many immigrants came to America
to escape war, political turmoil, famine, or religious persecution.
Others came against their will as chattel. Most, however, came for economic
reasons seeking a better life in a land they saw as one offering better
opportunity than the one they left. Some found it, others were disappointed
and had to wait for their second and third generation offspring to finally
reap some of what they themselves never achieved. Still they kept coming
en masse as 19th century America was young and growing and needed a
plentiful supply of skilled and unskilled workers. After the 1880s the
need was almost entirely for the unskilled to fill the growing number
of factory jobs.
RESTRICTIVE AND EXCLUSIONARY
IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION
The Naturalization Act of
1790 established the rules for naturalized citizenship as required by
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Until 1882, almost anyone
could move here and qualify, but thereafter the government began to
impose controls. Extreme racism was always in our DNA, and it's surfaced
and thrived throughout our history. It was evident in the 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act that made immigration from China illegal. It didn't matter
that it was Chinese labor (first hired in 1865) mainly that helped build
the transcontinental railroad, did the most dangerous work in some of
the most treacherous areas like the high Sierras, and worked for less
than a dollar a day. On May 10, 1869 when the final golden spike was
driven at Promontory, Utah to symbolize the connection of the transcontinental
system from east to west, ocean to ocean, it was mainly Chinese coolie
labor that raced to build the final 10 miles of track in 12 hours to
be done in time for the ceremony. We showed our gratitude by excluing
them when they were no longer needed. Theodore Roosevelt, a known racist
and noted imperialist and war hawk recipient of the Nobel Peace prize,
treated the Japanese with equal disdain in the 1906 "Gentleman's
Agreement" that allowed the US the right to exclude Japanese immigrants.
The result was all Asians couldn't emigrate here until the Johnson-Reed
Immigration Act of 1924 that established quotas restricting Southern
and Eastern European immigration as well as allowing some token numbers
in from Asia and other "less preferred" countries.
Through the years the immigration
issue would resurface on occasion as it has again today and generally
reflected the political bias of the times over any notion of fairness
to all those in other countries wishing to come here and those who'd
already arrived. We've always had our favored countries and world regions
with Anglo Europeans being at the head of the queue followed by Northwestern
Europeans overall. People of color from Latin America, Africa and Asia
have always been least preferred, except for the 300 years when we forcibly
brought black Africans here against their will as chattel or allowed
a few million Mexicans the privilege to come and be exploited by the
agribusiness of an earlier era. But besides that disgraceful past, our
racist heritage was there from the first time a settler met a native
Indian. All 18 million of them or so were only "in the way"
and had to be removed or first used before we did it - through mass
murder, forced resettlement or neglect. Racism was also a major factorin
the Mexican War in the 1840s when following our imperial "manifest
destiny" we stole half the country from our southern neighbor.
We didn't take it all because most of the population was in the southern
half, and we didn't want all those dark-skinned people diluting our
white Anglo majority.
Asians overall have been
relative newcomers to the US because they were either excluded entirely
or greatly restricted by discriminatory quotas. When the National Origins
Formula was established in 1929, total annual immigration was capped
at 150,000, but, beyond some token numbers the "no Asians allowed"
sign was still official policy. The important Immigration and Nationality
Act of 1952 (the McCarran-Walter Act) opened the door a crack to Asians,
but in that McCarthy era time also increased the power of government
to deport illegal immigrants suspected of communist sympathies. The
INA ended racial restrictions but retained a quota system with a preference
to our more favored countries. Eventually the INA established a system
of ethnic preferences and also placed great importance on labor qualifications.
But the Act was overturned in 1990 when Congress made it illegal to
deny anyone entry because of their beliefs, statements or associations.
By then the times were a-changing, the cold war over and te "red
scare" of the 1950s was an anachronism. That window of relief with
no real enemies would be short-lived.
No legislation is ever written
in stone, and in the Immigration Act of 1965 quotas based on national
origin were ended and preference instead was given to those having US
relatives. This enabled many more Asians to emigrate here, and they
along with Hispanics now comprise the fastest growing segments of our
population aided by their numbers entering the country legally or illegally.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 granted amnesty to illegal
immigrants who had been in the country before 1982 (for many it could
be hard to prove) but made it a crime to hire an illegal immigrant.
IMMIGRATION LAW BECOMES
MORE OPPRESSIVE
Major changes in immigration
law were enacted in 1996 when the 104th Republican Congress enacted
and Bill ("I feel your pain") Clinton signed into law the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA)
and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). These
were repressive laws supposedly intended mainly to control illegal immigration
and combat "terrorism." They did neither most often. Instead,
their provisions affect American families, legal immigrants and others
seeking to emigrate legally.
Under the 1996 statutes,
legal immigrants are routinely detained without bond, deported without
consideration for discretionary relief, restricted in their access to
counsel, and barred from appealing to the courts. The laws also allow
additional grounds for deportation and can subject long-term immigrants
to mandatory detention and automatic deportation for even minor offenses
like shoplifting, disturbing the peace or having a "joint"
in their pocket. Low-level immigration officials act as judge and jury
(no jury of their peers is allowed), and the federal courts are allowed
no power to review most deportation decisions and INS activities. These
laws can also be applied retroactively. As a result, many law-abiding
immigrants living here for many years can now be deported for minor
offenses and youthful indiscretions that may have occurred many years
ago. These laws literally show no mercy. They allow no second chances,
they can change the rules if so desired, and they deny the targeted
immigrant due rocess in a court of law. The result has been families
unjustly torn apart and made to suffer. Where are you when we need you
Emma Lazarus?
Our leadership before and
under George Bush never seemed or seems to miss an opportunity to fail
to miss an opportunity to do the right thing. During Bill Clinton's
second term Congress passed more immigration legislation in 1997 that
spurned most Central American refugee claims and again in 2000 that
offered only modest relief for some undocumented immigrants. It was
better than nothing but not by much.
POST 9/11 THE GLOVES
CAME OFF ALONG WITH THE MASK, AND IT'S A NEW BALL GAME - NOT ONE ANY
IMMIGRANT OF COLOR OR MUSLIM WANTS TO PLAY
Everything changed after
9/11, as if we didn't know by now. Start with the passage of the repressive
and now infamous USA Patriot Act in 2001. It provided funding for more
border guards and technologies to spot and detain/arrest possible "terrorists"
trying to enter the country. It also authorized the indefinite detention
of any noncitizen suspected of engaging in "terrorist" activities.
It gave the Attorney General complete discretion to decide who was a
suspected "terrorist" and do it based on no evidence. Those
of us paying attention know how things have turned out. But not enough
of us have, and that's why this bill passed almost without debate allowing
the government to move us dangerously closer to a full-blown national
security police state and get away with it - so far.
This act, only a tyrant could
love, stripped all legal protection of liberty and justice for Muslims
and Arabs in the US or those wishing to come. It sanctioned their being
monitored without notification as well as their NGOs, civic, charitable
and religious organizations. The American Bar Association calls this
unconstitutional, but just try to get redress. It allowed the Justice
Department the right to round up and detain an unknown number of "suspects"
from the Middle East and South Asia overall including at least 5,000
Muslim men only three of whom were charged with a crime. Federal immigration
courts are allowed to hold secret hearings on their status, and those
thought to be in the country illegally or who had some immigration violation
were ordered deported even when going back to their home country risked
their being arrested and tortured. It also gave the government authority
to freeze the assets of any organization it deems suspect for any reason.
It's since been open season making it legal or the government to conduct
a witch-hunt which has gone on ever since including allowing several
federal agencies to raid the homes and offices of the national Muslim
leadership in Northern Virginia. It all amounts to a war on Muslims
and Islam, especially targeted at Muslim immigrants of color or from
the Middle East and South Asia.
A NEW CLIMATE TO
SILENCE DISSENT, DESTROY CIVIL LIBERTIES AND DISCOURAGE IMMIGRATION
The post 9/11 climate cast
a pall of fear over the nation that especially affects our immigrant
population, particularly Muslims and especially those from 25 designated
countries (all but one majority Muslim). It also includes poor and desperate
Latinos mostly from Mexico and Central America who come here undocumented
(an estimated 60% of all Latinos are coming from Mexico) or wish to
when they can't do it legally. They practically have no other choice
because of the economic devastation caused them by the exploitative
US instituted so-called "neoliberal free trade agreements"
that have destroyed their ability to earn a living at home.
It's resulted in a mass witch-hunt
roundup and secret detention of thousands. Also many individuals were
targeted for deportation and in their removal proceedings were under
gag orders and prevented from talking to anyone. In addition, all foreign
students were tracked as potential terrorists, recent Muslim immigrants
were asked to voluntarily submit to law enforcement agency interviews
and hospitals were required to collect information on immigrant status
before providing Medicaid. Also repressive and restrictive regulations
were established governing the granting of visas including requiring
face-to-face interviews never before needed and withholding visas for
certain categories of people until the FBI conducts name checks to assure
they're not a terrorist threat. Fingerprinting of all visa-bearing travelers
is also required either when they get them or when arriving at airports
and seaports. After October 26, 2004 the law required this be done by
collecting biometric identifiers at US visa-issuing ofices abroad.
How long will it be before
all immigrants and those needing visas to visit will be required to
have an implanted computer chip for ID and tracking. Think I'm kidding?
The FDA has already approved such an experimental chip for use on 1,000
test subjects. Wanna volunteer? They'll even know when you go to the
"john." If they're pleased with the results from these "lab
rats", it's not far-fetched to imagine a new repressive law one
day requiring all of us - citizens, immigrants and visa holders - to
be so-implanted so they can monitor every move we make and maybe even
one day know what we think.
The new Department of Homeland
Security (aka "Big Brother") now controls this Orwellian nightmare
system. It's run by an unindicted war criminal, John Negroponte, US
ambassador to Honduras from 1981 - 1985 where he was our point man overseeing
the infamous Contra wars in Nicaragua and death squad activities and
human rights abuses throughout the region. He then briefly served as
our "ambassador to the new Iraq" post illegal invasion where
he likely introduced the "Salvador death squad option" now
being used intensively in a crazed attempt to foment a real civil war
to divide the country. It's modeled after the one he was in charge of
in El Salvador against that country's freedom-fighting resistance combating
the brutal US supported right wing government in the early 80s.
DHS makes the visa rules, decides who can or cannot get them and be
allowed into the country. In the past the State Department handled this.
It was simpler then which encouraged foreigners to visit, attend school
here or emigrate. Now with a maze of hostile regulations, many foreigners
are dissuaded from coming at all or prevented from doing so. This has
adversely affected US corporations, the travel industry and also many
universities heavily reliant on foreign students and scholars. It's
caused leaders and officials in business, science and education as well
as civil libertarians to be concerned enough to warn this can only be
detrimental to the strength of the nation and our precious freedoms
fast disappearing.
Blame the Congress for this
mess. With immigration a hot issue, they passed the Homeland Security
Act in 2002 which abolished the Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS) and moved its functions from the Justice Department to the newly
created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Within the DHS the Bureau
of Border Security now has authority over our borders and enforcement
of our immigration laws. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
was given responsibility over visas, citizenship, asylum, and refugee
status. Look for more repressive and restrictive rules ahead in a post
9/11 climate hostile to people whether they already live here legally,
wish to visit, and especially if they want to emigrate and happen to
have a darker complexion than most of us.
A NATION ADDICTED
TO THE NEED FOR ENEMIES - REAL OR INVENTED
With the end of the cold
war and along with it the great "red scare" and evil empire"
of that period, the US was desperate to find new enemies. How else could
we justify a high level of military spending and homeland security and
readiness unless we could scare the public enough to accept it. It's
happened so often before you'd think people would have caught on by
to it by now - but you'd be wrong. When our political leaders need an
excuse to pursue some awful public-unfriendly agenda for their own private
reasons and benefit, they need a good excuse to convince us to go along.
They've found the best way most often is by inventing a threat, hyping
it to scare us to death, and then declaring war on it. It seems to work
every time so why not keep doing it. We've had a "war on drugs"
for over 30 years, and in the 1980s Ronald Reagan "fought"
that one, the "cold war" and made it a trifecta by declaring
a war on "international terrorism." In the 1990s the "cold
war" was just a memory, the "war on drugs" cntinued to
lock up mainly our poor and black population, the "war on international
terrorism" was shortened to a "war on terrorism" and
we added a new war to keep it in threes - the one on immigrants which
this essay is about and is very much connected to our so-called but
phony "war on terrorism."
First some numbers based
on Census Bureau data. That bureau estimates the nation's foreign-born
immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record high of 35
million in March, 2005. Their data also indicate the first half of the
current decade has been the highest five year period of immigration
in our history. Between January, 2000 and March, 2005 they estimate
7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) entered the country,
3.7 million of whom they believe came illegally. Their data also shows
that between March, 1995 and March, 2000 the foreign-born population
grew by 5.7 million or about 1.1 million a year and between 2000 and
2005 an additional 5.2 million immigrated here or about 1 million +
a year. Census 2000 also estimates between 8 - 11 million immigrants
were living in the country illegally. It's likely up around the higher
number now or even more.
Hispanics now are the single
largest and fastest growing ethnic or minority group in the country
according to the Census Bureau. They number over 41 million or nearly
14% of the population surpassing blacks at about 40 million or 13.4%.
The Bureau projects that by 2050 the Hispanic population of the US will
reach 102.6 million or 24% of the total. In large and dominant states
like California and Texas the totals are even more dramatic with Hispanics
numbering about one third of the population and rising. And in no other
major city is this trend more prominent than in Los Angeles which is
now or shortly will be a majority Hispanic city.
THE WAR ON IMMIGRANTS
ON THREE FRONTS NOW BEING WAGED IN THE CONGRESS
The current legislation that's
now passed the House and a different version so far unpassed in the
Senate promises to wage an unholy war against three classes of immigrants
primarily - the undocumented ones already here, (especially those of
color), those coming or wishing to from Mexico from where they can walk
or wade across the border plus their Central American cousins, and all
Muslims (again especially those of color) from anywhere including those
from Arab countries who aren't white enough. Since 9/11 all Muslims,
including the ones living here legally, are clearly public enemy number
one. But those dark-skinned Latinos desperate to escape the catastrophic
poverty from US imposed "neoliberal free market" trade policies
aren't far behind. If anything passes close to its current House form,
it will create a legalized racially stereotyped underclass of Untermenschen
(subhumans) subject to legalized felony scapegoating. The result will
be a living hell for the millions affected and be as far-removed a can
be imagined from the 1960s civil rights legislation that tried undo
centuries of injustice and persecution of black people and all others
long denied their equal rights.
It's unclear how the latest
incarnation of immigration legislation will finally emerge or if in
an election year whether any will. The compromise Senate bill stalled
as the Congress adjourned for their Easter brake. Debate will resume
when Congress returns, and if the Senate bill passes, which appears
likely but not certain, it will then have to be reconciled in conference
committee with the House. It won't be easy and may not happen this year.
The debate was heated in both Houses, and when the conference committee
meets to produce a final bill, it'll resume again for sure. In the end
the current "reform" (always code language for annulling our
rights) effort may emerge stillborn. The 109th Congress may just kick
it down the road to the 110th and let them deal with a very contentious
issue that could easily be solved if we had enough legislators who believed
in equity and justice instead of politics as usual liberally seasoned
with race hate, demonization and blame the victim.
It's very clear what the
new law would look like if the so-called House Sensenbrenner bill ever
makes it on the books - HR 4437, The Border Protection, Antiterrorism,
and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. I love the sweet-sounding
language they always use that usually conceals a horror beneath it.
In the case of HR 4437 it's even worse than that. For me and at my age,
it's hard to believe anything like it could be passed by even a single
branch of the Congress. But I said the same thing about the USA Patriot
Act that passed both Houses quickly and overwhelmingly (only one honorable
senator voted against it) and was signed into law about as fast as you
could say bombs away. No one in Congress had time to read it or likely
even skim it.
Like its Patriot Act cousin,
HR 4437 is a bill out of the bowels of hell that only tyrants, racists
and hatemongers of all stripes could love. It criminalizes anyone in
the country without documentation. Under current law that's a simple
civil violation and often or generally ignored when those affected work
for agribusiness that wants them or the Walmarts of the world that do
as well. Under the neofascist House bill, 11 million or so undocumented
workers already here would be legal felons and subject to immediate
detention and deportation with little if any recourse through the courts.
It would break up and destroy families. The children born here are US
citizens and could stay (supposedly, but don't count on it). Their undocumented
parent or parents could not. And should those deported decide to return
and get caught, it would impose mandatory minimum prison sentences for
them and anyone else judged to be promoting illegal entry.
The bill would also make
it a felony subject to five years in prison for anyone giving aid and
comfort to the undocumented like food and water or desperately needed
medical care. There's a whole lot longer list of nightmarish provisions
in this monstrosity including building 698 miles of five double-layer
apartheid wall segments along the Mexican border with California and
Arizona (shades of Israel in the Occupied Territories where the intent
is to steal Palestinian land and destroy innocent lives or the Berlin
Wall). The Senate bill would pass on a physical barrier and impose a
virtual one instead consisting of surveillance cameras, sensors and
other monitoring equipment. Both bills call for measures to increase
border security. The House version would do it by increasing the size
of a Gestapo-like Border Control force 60-fold to 663,546 (that's one
third larger than the active duty US Army excluding reservists and National
Guard). These "border guards" will be little more than armed
thugs legally manated to do about anything they want because acting
tough and terrorizing are terrific deterrents, and they'd only be doing
it to poor dark-skinned folks we don't want who don't count for anything
anyway.
This huge army, if it's created,
already has a volunteer border force in place called the Minuteman Civil
Defense Corps (MCDC) or "Minutemen" for short. Their name
is sacrilegiously borrowed from those "ready in a minute men"
that go back in our history to the mid-1600s and were trained to be
first on the scene to defend us in a conflict. All this force wants
to defend is white supremacy and race hate. It's an ultra-right neofascist
group possibly numbering in the thousands of Nazi-like paramilitary
street thugs now terrorizing anyone they catch trying to cross our borders
and enter the country illegally, primarily in the Southwest. Other organizations
are just as extremist like the National Policy Institute that believes
the rights of white people come first, "diversity" and "multiculturalism"
are practically sinful, Affirmative Action should be abolished and mass
deportation is the solution to our "illegal immigrant problem."
These groups and organizations are being tacitly supported by our elected
oficials through their silence or in too many cases their complicity.
Let's be clear and call all these groups and their members what they
are - white supremacist racist nationalists or simply hatemongers for
short.
In the US today, this is
what's going on to compound the existing horror from the sort of domestic
equivalent of this bill, the USA Patriot Act, for those of us here legally.
There's a sinister idea behind all this legislation, other oppressive
laws already on the books and a government in charge that believes it
can do whatever it wants about anything to anyone, law or no law. We
have a president who believes and has said he's "above the law"
and the "Constitution is just a goddamed piece of paper."
With that kind of attitude, should it surprise anyone that what's now
happening is a full-scale effort to create a repressive national security
police state with the consent of the public that's scared of its shadow
and willing to sacrifice its freedom for the illusion of security. In
reality, the Bush administration is trying to "keep the legal and
illegal rabble in line" while their quest for empire goes on unobstructed
and unabated by waging permanent war on all parts of the world we haven't
yet conquerd and colonized.
GEORGE BUSH'S TEMPORARY
(GUEST) WORKER PROGRAM - A RETURN OF THE "BRACEROS" IF IT
BECOMES LAW
George Bush has proposed
and the Senate may pass its version of a temporary or guest worker program
as part of their immigration legislation when they return from spring
brake. Shades of the infamous Bracero Program that was in force from
1942-1964 and gave employers license to exploit over three million Mexican
migrant farm workers, deny them their rights and subject them to severe
harassment and oppression from extremist groups and racist authorities.
Whether or not we enact a new version of that old program, we're currently
moving toward establishing a police state as I've already alluded to
above to control and restrain the home population from resisting or
interfering with their global empire project. The easy targets are those
we label possible or likely "terrorists" followed by anyone
with dark skin living here, wishing to, already arrived undocumented
or others we may allow in to be used, abused and then discarded when
no longer needed.
We have a tainted history
in our treatment of immigrants going back many years. I discussed earlier
what we did to the Chinese who built our transcontinental railroad in
the 19th century. It was no different in the 1930s when in the desperation
of the Great Depression, Latinos were viewed as taking jobs and getting
government benefits from "real Americans." As a result, up
to two million Mexicans were "relocated" to Mexico during
that decade even though 1.2 million of them were born in the US and
were US citizens. In California alone, 400,000 Latino US citizens or
legal residents were forced to leave. This virulent racism resurfaced
in 1954 when under "Operation Wetback" (the name alone wreaks
of race hate) and in a national reaction against illegal immigrants,
over one million here illegally were deported back to Mexico by trucks,
buses, trains and even ships. In some cases even their US born children
were sent with them even though they were US citizens. It's a wonder
we didn't put them all on forcd marches and make them go back the hard
way.
The stalled compromise Senate
bill, endorsed by George Bush, is little more than election year politicking
to win the Hispanic vote. In addition, it would create a permanently
legal underclass of low-paid workers, allow employers the right to exploit
them and put added pressure on US workers so as to restrain their wage
and benefit demands.
The Senate bill divides illegal
immigrants into three groups. Those who arrived after April 1, 2001
could stay permanently if they pass background checks and pay back taxes
and a $2,000 fine (no easy task for them); worked at least three of
the past five years; work another six years and get in the queue behind
other applicants already in it. Immigrants who arrived between April
1, 2001 and January, 2004 would have to return to a US port of entry
and re-enter the country legally with a temporary work permit. They
would also have to pass background checks and pay back taxes. Finally,
illegals who arrived after January, 2004 would be required to leave
the country. They could only return on temporary work permits.
Any immigration bill, if
passed, will create an overwhelming burden of documentation and verification
on millions of immigrants as well as the federal bureaucracy and employers.
Immigrants going through the process would be forced to give up their
right to privacy protection, asylum and due process. If an Employment
Verification System is part of a final resolution, they would also have
to get a federal agency's permission to work. In addition, it would
require them to learn English and would subject them to overwhelming
bureacratic red tape that under the best of conditions likely would
be rife with errors and delays that would be nightmarish to resolve.
And to boot it would create an easily accessed database that would make
all those in it easy pickings for identity theives.
Employers under the Senate
plan would be required to verify that their new workers are in the country
legally. They now only need to ask for worker documents showing those
they hire are allowed to be here. The plan envisions a tamper-proof
means of ID, such as a driver's license with a picture, a fingerprint
or an iris scan. If that provision becomes law, it's step one on the
road to a national identity card for everyone, possibly to include an
embedded chip so Homeland Security, the NSA and other snoop agencies
could keep tabs on all our moves and whereabouts. "Big Brother"
is alive and well and "in our face."
The immigration service would
also have its hands full under this plan. It would have to cope with
the overwhelming burden of doing background checks and verifying the
identity, work history, tax obligations and English language competency
of 11 million or more people. This is on top of their already enormous
burden handling the influx of immigrants into the country. The IRS and
Social Security Administration would also be obligated along with employers
to help immigrants calculate what back taxes they owe and what they
had paid into Social Security accounts. Employers would have to report
these earnings and would be in violation of the law if they didn't.
A COMPARISON OF CURRENT
PROPOSED IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION TO HITLER'S NUREMBERG RACE LAWS
What's on the table being
debated in the Congress is not as extreme as Hitler's infamous Nuremberg
Race Laws, but there are some ominous comparisons. Early on in Nazi
Germany Hitler wanted to assert the superiority of the "Aryan race."
He hoped to create a Master Race of pure blue-eyed, blond Aryan Caucausian
Nordic types, and even though the notion of Aryan has no racial meaning
he inferred that it did in what he preached and the laws he had enacted.
The chosen ones were the Herrenvolk and all others were called Untermenschen
or subhumans. In the US today Causausian Judeo-Christians are our Herrenvolk
and all others are the Untermenschen, especially people of color and
Muslims.
We don't say that openly,
write our laws with overtly denigrating or restrictive racist language
in them or practice a policy of extermination today to create a "racially"
pure society. But we did just that for 300 years to our native population
and in the process slaughtered about 18 million of them as we built
the nation we now have. Hitler, in fact, used what we did as a model
for his own plan to exterminate the Jews and other undesirables he wanted
eliminated.
We also used black Africans
as slaves over the same period we eliminated our native population and
then after freeing them held them in the bondage of Jim Crow laws and
racist attitudes that exist to this day despite the landmark civil rights
legislation of the 1960s. We never accepted black people or any others
of color as co-equals even though we piously say we do and enacted laws
that codify it.
The current immigration legislation
now being debated is only the latest chapter in white America's attempt
to put its oppressive boot on the neck of people of color we see as
inferior or now label "terrorists." And we created a new public
enemy number one after 9/11, Muslims, and have persecuted them with
a vengeance. Just like the saying that "history doesn't repeat
itself, but it rhymes", attributed to Mark Twain, what the US has
practiced in recent years is not like Nazi Germany at its worst, but
there's similarity enough to be very disturbing and we're heading in
the wrong direction.
Hitler, too, began slowly
and moderately after being named German Chancellor in January, 1933
(about one month before Franklin Roosevelt became our 32nd President).
He needed time to consolidate power and at first didn't want to scare
the voters before they lost their franchise or moderate politicians
before they no longer had any say. What began modestly gradually became
more extreme and isn't too dissimilar to what's happening here now.
Bill Clinton's signing into law the 1996 immigration reform act (IIRAIRA)
and anti-terrorism act (AEDPA) discussed earlier can be seen as the
first shot across the bow in the current war against immigrants. Then
after 9/11 the gloves came off, and it was off to the races with the
infamous Patriot Act, mass witch-hunt roundups of those labeled potential
terrorists and now an extreme and hostile attempted crackdown on those
immigrant groups we've targeted - those of color, especially Latinos
and Muslims. What's next? Unless the current mass public protest uproar
contines, gets stronger and makes the lawmakers nervous enough to believe
we really mean business and won't stand for this, you can bet it will
only get worse until we're all targeted and become potential victims.
That's about how Hitler did it, and we seem headed in the same dangerous
direction. Good Germans back then didn't complain as long as it happened
to others until one day many discovered it could happen to them too.
By then it was too late. That's how tyranny works.
MASS OUTRAGE IN THE
STREETS NATIONWIDE IN PROTEST - A NEW CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE
In recent weeks millions
of people have gone to the streets in cities nationwide to protest en
masse against the current immigration legislation in the Congress. These
protests have the potential to spread and grow enough to become the
new civil rights struggle of our time. Hostile and denigrating legislation
in the Congress has lit the fuse, and all the immigrant rights movement
may need to combat it is a few Martin Luther King type figures to lead
the effort for real justice against a government intent on denying it
to them.
The protests are continuing,
and at least 60 cities are scheduling more events and demonstrations
that include candlelight vigils in Los Angeles, a mass rally at the
Washington monument and a "day without Hispanics" in Telluride,
CO intended as a work stoppage. In addition, immigration rights activists
are planning a national action, student walkout and boycott they call
The Great American Boycott of 2006 on May 1 of no work, no school, no
shopping and a demand for amnesty and full and equal rights for all
working people. Adding overall impact to these mass protests is the
presence of Hispanics from Mexico and almost every Central and South
American country including Venezuela whose twice democratically elected
President, Hugo Chavez, is also a target of US hostility and possible
future illegal aggression to oust him. But other immigrant ethnic groups
are well represented as well - especially large numbers from the Korean
and Chinese communities.
Joshua Hoyt, Executive Director
of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a 120-member
coalition of organizations, said: "There has never been this kind
of mobilization in the immigrant community ever. They have kicked the
sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights
struggle." And it's gone beyond just the rights of legal and illegal
immigrants to include working people of all races who've seen their
jobs exported, unions weakened or destroyed, wages stagnated and essential
benefits reduced, lost or never gotten. It's seen permanent high-paying
jobs replaced by temporary ones at much lower pay and often no benefits.
It's seen the oppressive power of big corporations aided by their allies
in government wreak havoc over ordinary working people including legal
immigrants and the undocumented in a vicious downward cycle of exploitation
and repression. The voices in the streets are saying "no mas/no
more." I make no bones where I stand - four-square with all thse
in the streets, and I was born here and am one of the privileged. That
could never have happened if my ancestors had been denied entry or had
been deported after they arrived.
Look at the impressive numbers
in cities around the country. In my city of Chicago alone, from 300,000
- 500,000 protested downtown near where I live in the largest ever protest
in the city's history for any reason. In Los Angeles it was the same
thing with somewhere between 1 - 1.5 million in the streets, again historic.
In New York, tens of thousands marched across the Brooklyn Bridge carrying
the flags of their native countries. And those in the streets included
more than immigrants - the unions brought out their members, there were
young people and students who walked out of class in defiance of school
authorities to join in (40,000 alone in Los Angeles). It's hard to tell
where this will lead or what effect it will have, but never underestimate
the power of organized people. When enough of them speak out, politicians
listen, especially when those people are voters or in the case of young
people when they have parents who are. Famed Chicago community organizer
Sol Linowitz understood it when he oce said "the way to beat organized
money is with organized people." Social activist Arundhati Roy
also understands and she's said "we are many and they are few."
And I suggest we all together do a good imitation of Howard Beale, the
news anchor from the 1976 movie Network, who one day got fed up yelled
out "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."
Any Howards out there? Come on, let me hear you. I start you off and
say what I said before - I'm past made as hell, I won't take it anymore,
and I intend to fight back to save my civil liberties and the republic
and to help the disadvantaged and oppressed achieve the justice they
deserve. But I can't do it alone. I need a lot of you with me.
TODAY'S WAR ON IMMIGRANTS
AND "TERRORISTS" WILL BE TOMORROW'S WAR AGAINST US ALL - IT'S
ALREADY BEGUN
I've written now a number
of times before that I believe the country is approaching a dangerous
watershed. The scenario I paint is a gloomy one in which the situation
is grave, the stakes are immense and the time is short. It's a battle
to save the republic and our sacred Constitutional rights. I'm desperately
trying to sound the alarm against an out-of-control imperial state engaged
in a permanent war abroad for empire along with a "second front"
at home against all working people (that's most everyone) and especially
the ones most easily targeted who comprise the subject of this essay
- vulnerable legal and undocumented immigrants. It's a life and death
struggle to save us from descending into the hell of tyranny, the repressive
police state being created to control it and an endless war on the world.
That's not a world I want to live in or pass on to my children or grandchildren.
I hope you feel as I do and are willing to do something about it. Unless
you do and together we can find a way to revese course and do it quickly,
we'll awaken one day sooner than we may think and find out it's already
too late, we've crossed "The Rubicon", and there's no way
back. The sad lesson of history will have been repeated again, but this
time to us. It can happen here, make no mistake. Will you now head out
to the mall complacently with what's at stake? Will you let this happen
without a fight? I won't. Are you with me?
AN IMPORTANT NOTE
OF DEDICATION:
I've never before dedicated
one of my articles to anyone, but this time feel I must. I wish to dedicate
this one to the wonderful and redoubtable staff at US based Pacifica
Radio KPFA's Flashpoints Radio in Berkeley, CA for their courageous,
tireless and unrelenting efforts on behalf of the immigrant communities
of my country and for their overall work and commitment in the unending
fight for humanity and equal justice for all. They inspired me to write
this article and several others as well. I'm deeply grateful to them.
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog www.sjlendman.blogspot.com
.