Activist Agenda Proposal: Expanding the Fight for Economic Justice: Immigration, Foreign Policy and Workers’ Rights
By YDS • Jul 23rd, 2008 • Category: UncategorizedAfter two years of YDS’ Immigrant Rights Project, it is clear that we must continue our activism around this issue. Our communities (and often our families) are full of immigrants seeking a better life, but facing a xenophobic backlash in the form of anti-immigrant graffiti, hate, violence, discriminatory housing laws, and racial profiling. Talk radio hosts call immigrants “cockroaches” and talk about shooting suspected “illegal aliens” on sight. The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency colludes with local law enforcement to conduct phony “gang busts,” using outdated lists of suspected gang members as an excuse to attack immigrants (and often their American family members) in their homes. Once rounded up for deportation, immigrants are shuttled from jail to jail, held in often dangerous conditions and far from their families. More than 60 immigrants have died in custody since 2004 while awaiting deportation, often from heartless medical neglect (though ICE refuses to release information about all the deaths).
In fact, just as the Washington Post ran a special series highlighting the horrific stories of some of those imprisoned immigrants, ICE conducted what was the largest workplace raid in recent times; involving 900 ICE agents, and stole the headlines away. In the aforementioned raid, Iowa meatpacking workers were rounded up and corralled in a converted state fair cattle site to await processing. Unsurprisingly, the raid interfered with an ongoing state investigation of child labor and wage violations, designed to improve conditions in the factory. According to an interpreter brought in, most of the detained people pleaded to be quickly deported so they could try to feed their families by finding work back home, but they were instead sentenced to many months or even years in jail – a deliberate, double punishment.
It is no secret that the Postville ICE raid was a pilot operation, to be replicated elsewhere, with kinks ironed out after lessons learned. This acceleration of raids is only a continuation of mandatory deportation laws passed in the mid 1990’s which continue to punish legal U.S. residents even after they have served their time. Some of these crimes are minor and non-violent or even years before these laws were passed, but the offenders are being deported and separated from their families. Nearly 700,000 immigrants have been deported since these laws were passed and many had lived here their whole lives, because they were brought here as children. The recent increase in high-profile raids creates a climate of fear that impacts our immigrant solidarity work.
The other complicating factor is the presidential election. Senators Obama and McCain have different positions on immigration, especially now that McCain is pandering to the right-wing Republican base. However, we are troubled by Obama’s tepid support for immigrant rights. Since capital’s primary goal of a massive new guest worker program failed through the compromise Comprehensive Immigrant Reform bill (which YDS openly stood against), corporate interests are likely to push for this and other policies through individual legislation in the coming years, and we need Obama’s voice raised in solidarity with immigrants to keep the gains we have made. Obama’s plans to increase resources for processing citizenship applications, decrease raids and deportations, and potentially change our economic relationship with Mexico would clearly promote human rights better than those of McCain. While Obama’s campaign rhetoric is better than McCain, we do not rely on politicians to change the world. As democratic socialists it is our job to constantly pressure politicians to do the right thing, because as Frederick Douglass once remarked, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
Furthermore, as socialists committed to true democratic politics, we believe that the fight for reforms is as much about empowering, positioning and preparing working people for the next fight as it is about winning any particular election or enacting needed legislation. As long as the Right spouts rhetoric that demonizes immigrant women, justifies the separation of parents without papers from their American children, and blames immigrants for wasting public resources in schools and hospitals, we will need to fight back. Our voices must be raised in solidarity with undocumented immigrants and our hearts and minds engaged in their struggle, for our battle against capitalism is intimately tied up in the fate of the most exploited workers.
Our role as democratic socialists is thus to organize our communities to side with progressive forces on immigration. The time is now to fight back against the scapegoating of immigrant workers. Our job as socialists is to educate our peers about the true culprit behind economic insecurity and depressed wages: the capitalist system of exploitation. The Young Democratic Socialists nationally and locally must mobilize young people to support the rights of all workers, documented or not. This is especially important for chapters in communities with many immigrants, whether visible or invisible. We must be the allies of immigrants where their voices are so often silenced. In addition, it is up to socialists to argue that as long as capitalism is the dominant global economic system, and capital flows across borders without regulation, migration will be a fact of life and immigrant workers will be simultaneously exploited and blamed for native workers’ economic woes.
For these reasons, YDS will carry over our Immigrant Rights Project into another year. In our first two years, YDS discussion groups explored the economic, racial and other aspects of this issue, and YDSers mobilized for Mayday protests and other events. In our third year, we hope to reflect on lessons learned and build on our experiences to have an even stronger national project that every YDS local supports and actively carries out. YDS must use the Immigrant Rights Project as a method to unify our voice, build alliances, and create a greater presence for ourselves on the Left.
Suggested Activities (in addition to those proposed last year):
- Working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) on their national campaign to empower immigrant tomato pickers in Florida.
- Highlighting immigrant rights and how the rights of citizen workers depend on the rights of immigrant workers, during the National Student Labor Week of Action.
- Working alongside local immigrant rights groups to pressure our Congress-people to support the Child Citizen Protection Act, a bill that protects the immigrant parents of US citizens and is an opportunity to publicize the inhumane nature of ICE deportations.
Activism
- Volunteer (or fundraise) for a state or local pro-immigrant initiative (or against an anti one).
- Offer solidarity to a day laborer center in case they need people to help them monitor Minutemen or other anti-immigrant activity.
- Sign chapter members up to a local ICE raid emergency response network, and make signs and banners right away so you’ll be ready to turn up on a moment’s notice if there is a local raid.
- Volunteer at (or fundraise for) an immigrant worker center.
- Organize a counter-demonstration when the Minutemen come through town.
- Table or hold a study break and have students write letters to their elected officials or make calls to politicians.
- Build a coalition and campaign to get your campus to cancel their contract with Chipotle.
- Support the workers or their union on your campus, since many are often immigrants.
- Invite a moderate Democrat to speak on campus and grill them on their immigration stance.
- Pressure your local Congressperson to become a co-sponsor the Child Citizen Protection Act or reverse the harsh 1996 immigration reform laws.
Public Socialist Education
- Hold interactive workshops at a teach-in.
- Screen a pro-immigrant movie like “La Americana”, “Made in L.A.”, “El Norte”, “The Letter”, “Farmingville”, or “Under the Same Moon” with discussion afterwards.
- Host an educational speaker for the campus community (a policy expert on immigration or global capitalism, for example, or an immigrant worker).
- Internal Political Education
- Have everyone in the chapter write letters to the editor in response to a specific article, then send them in at the same time so there’s more chance one will get printed.
- Hold a series of discussion meetings with readings (this can be turned into a public socialist education project as well, with discussion meetings publicly advertised in advance).
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YDS is YDS@DSAUSA.org
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Sadly, I must oppose your agenda proposal. Overpopulation, congestion, urban sprawl, crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded schools and emergency rooms, diminishing resources, vanishing farm land and green space, lack of affordable housing, crime, pollution, depressed wages, increased tax burdens, the marginalization of American workers, tax payers, and voters, the balkanization of our communities, the overall decline in quality of life, are all the result of unconstrained immigration. Indeed, it’s ridiculous to assert that we can spread democracy or social justice to other nations, so long as it remains easier and far more lucratives for their populations to slip across our border, rather than demand rights and justice in their native countries. Certainly America’s Citizen’s, tax payers and workers should have some say in who and how many we allow into our nation. Too many people competing for the same limited resources cannot be considered sound economic, environmental, social or cultural policy. Fresh air, clean water, and wide open spaces, they aren’t making anymore of any of these things!Indeed, a report just released in Australia suggests that no appreaciable improvements in greenhouse gases will be achieved in that nation, unless there are serious reductions in immigration. Presently we are experiencing modest shortages in food, fuel and water. Arguably, this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s dangerously misguided to suggest that the United States or any other nation must constinue to act as the “safety valve” allowing corrupt, undemocratic leaders to dispose of their criminal, their uneducated, their sick and excess populations through our porous borders and lax enforcement practices. Demonstrably, the overwhelming majority of America’s Citizens support securing our borders, enforcing our immigration laws, and stabilizing our population. Overpopulation through unconstrained immigration is a threat to our nation, a threat that cannot be overstated!Expanding the fight for economic justice should be to carry the fight where these injustices exist. Importing even more poverty makes no sense! No reasonable person can suggest that America’s workers, tax payers, citizens are in any way responsible for the corruption and lack of economic and social justice that exists in other nations. The prudent solution to social and economic injustice is to address the root cause where it exists, not by transferring all the worlds disenfranchised to our nation. Those who are so self interested, weak willed, cowardly or lazy that they prefer to flee rather than stand up to their own government, are hardly the immigrants our immigration policies should encourage to come here! You can’t treat causes of poverty by bringing it here to the United States just because this is where your support base is, or because it’s more convenient to work on. Church ministries work only so long as they minister where the need is greatest. Trying to address a major social ill by bringing it to the United States where you can work on it in air conditioned splendor, and still get home in time for supper, seems to be the agenda for many activists. Activists are big on “should do” but often very short on “will do” when it comes to working to make conditions better in another country. Immigration can’t and mustn’t be the solution for all the worlds problems, because sooner or later, even America’s resources will fail. This shouldn’t be about helping people flee their native country for the relatively “easy ride” in America. Such policies only displace the problem and undermine the interests of American workers, tax payers and Citizens. Working for democracy and economic justice in their native countries is the only option that will ultimately address the problem. Otherwise America’s economy, our environment, our social and cultural interests will be subsumed by ever more needy and impoverished populations, each in turn presenting a sad story of unfairness, and a grasping hand willing to accept less than those who came before, and allways unwilling to do the heavy lifting necessary to build their own democracy and economy in their native lands.
Virtually every industrialized nation, China, Mexico, Great Britain, and most recently the entire European Union, has taken steps to end illegal immigration, and to curtail legal immigration to only that which is prudent, demonstrably necessary, and above all other concerns, in the best interests of their native populations! It’s dangerously misguided to suggest that the United States not do likewise. Obviously doing anything less than this plays into the hands of unscrupulous employers and big business who increasingly depend on payroll savings, rather than innovation, quality, or productivity for their profits. By definition, governments duty is to serve the interests of it’s Citizens, and not those of “illegal aliens” seeking the easy way out, or of foreign governments. Indeed, would there even be a United States if our founding fathers had chosen to “slip across some porous border” rather than stand up to the Crown?I suggest that an agenda of helping those who need it most, in the place where need is greatest (their native lands) is the only objective means of addressing the negative consequences of unconstrained immigration. The will of America’s Citizens, at least the majority, seems to make this point abundantly clear to anyone who truly listens.
Ed…
So long as capital has the absolute freedom to move about the world in search of cheaper environmental, health, safety, and labor costs; you will find workers in poverty. When firms decide one day that it is no longer profitable to base their production in Mexico (because production costs will be lower in China for example) those Mexican workers are left without jobs. The choice: Remain in an area where there is no work, or travel to seek work; the choice is pretty obvious.
Immigrants are not “running from their home countries problems” nor are they “lazy.” They are merely traveling to where there is work and good pay. Its logical. If your angry about immigrants coming to the US, then perhaps you should take a look at our “Renegotiate Nafta” agenda proposal. Nafta has contributed to the destruction of family farms across mexico, which has in turn forced workers to attempt to find work in the cities. If there is a shortage of work in the cities, then they may make the move across the border.
In short…don’t blame the victim. The US has lead the charge to make capital incredibly mobile which has in turn given the power to capital rather than labor. This has led to firms being able to dictate the terms to host countries, which leads to decreases in labor rights, wages, benefits, etc. THAT IS WHAT BREEDS OUTMIGRATION. Globalization is inevitable but the power of capital over nation-states and workers is not.
IF YOU WANT TO CURTAIL IMMIGRATION, YOU NEED TO PUT PRESSURE ON THE US TO RE-REGULATE GLOBAL CAPITAL.
Wow, I’m not sure where to even start. These are all arguments developed by racist anti-immigrant groups over the last fifty years in order to justify their xenophobia. It is unfortunate that they can appeal to people’s fears that we are destroying the planet, since we indeed are, but that destruction is driven by capitalism’s insatiable need for growth and capitalists’ use of state power to deregulate industry and privatize common resources that aught to be protected and used judiciously. It is also unfortunate that since war profiteers pressure and in many cases have taken over government, the state refuses to spend nearly as much on domestic human needs, like health care and education, as on imperialist wars abroad (party motivated, of course, by the desire for oil). Ordinary citizens then feel that public services are failing and rightfully look for answers.
So, we live in a time when our planet is dying, people don’t have health care and our schools are falling apart. But instead of looking at the deliberately exploitative economic system that controls all of our lives, the capitalist class that runs that system, or the government that so often aids and abets that system, these anti-immigrant groups want us to blame one of the least powerful groups of people in our society. That makes no sense to me.
I also find it pretty ridiculous that immigrants are blamed for crime and the balkanization of our communities. If one is undocumented, one does not commit violent crime, for fear of being found out and deported. If one is forced to migrate to the US as a matter of survival, one wants to become an active part of one’s new community, but if one is met with racism and threats of deportation, it’s a bit of a turnoff.It’s too bad we don’t have a link to our “Myths and Facts about Immigration” brochure because it refutes pretty much everything our friend Ed wrote. Anyone know if it’s on the website or electronic? I am not feeling like re-writing the entire brochure, though it is full of good info.
Thanks Flavio. All i know is that after 40 (1968) years as a permanent resident in the US, I applied for citizenship in 2006 and because i had a problem with the law in 1982, ( 26 YEARS AGO) I was deported in 2008. Instead of receiving a letter telling me that I was eligible for deportation, I was arrested like a street dog in my home at 430 in the morning. I told ICE that i was a graduate of Fordham University and that I was a professional in the finance field for the past 20 years. I also told them, that I was a veteran of the US Marine Corps and that I was offended to be arrested like a dog instead of being sent a letter to appear. I told them that i was (and i still am) a proud man and if they did not want me here, then I did not want to be here and I asked to be deported immediately as I did not want to be part of this country. Instead they locked me up for 8 months in mandatory detention and then deported me. I leave behind three American citizen children, Joanne, 24, Sophia, 13 and Ezekiel 18. I leave behind all my social security funds which I’ve earned for the past 30 years so that i may live the rest of my old age (i am 48 now) as a pauper in a country I don’t recognize because I left here (Dominican Republic) when I was eight. Please have Congress fix the 1996 Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act and get rid of Bush and Cheney and his attorney general who are prosecuting these laws and allowing heretofore racist comments to flourish in disguise of patriotism.
Bolivar,
Your tale is tragic and unfortunately occurs far too often. Regardless of whether this agenda proposal passes at the conference, I’m sure that many of our activists will continue to work tirelessly on this issue.
My heart goes out to you…my parents (emigrated from Brasil 30 years ago) submitted their citizenship applications last year and finally have an interview scheduled. Hopefully everything goes right.
Take Care!
bolivar brito,
You must have done something pretty bad in 1982. Sorry, bolivar brito, flavio and Maria, but illegal immigration needs to stop and Ed W has a more realistic view of the problem.
Actually, most drug offenses are grounds for mandatory deportation. The 1996 law that Congress enacted included a very broad definition of conviction and defines many crimes, including some misdemeanors, as “aggravated felonies” that are mandatory grounds for deportation. The war on drugs, which is feeding the prison-industrial complex and locking up a disproportionate number of men of color (since communities of color are targeted by police more often and drug laws are disproportionately harsh around drugs used primarily in working class communities of color, rather than middle class or wealthy white communities), is being merged with the deportation apparatus. It’s too bad you didn’t list any reasons for supporting Mr. Weirness’ arguments, Brian.
Dear all,
The negative responses shows me that we really need to keep immigrant rights at the forefront of our work. I want to speak to two things: stopping undocumented immigration and the environment. If you are really interested in “stopping” undocumented immigration, the proposal put forth by the opponents of this and people similar to them would really do nothing. People in poorer countries are working to improve their conditions. From Bolivians fighting the privatization of water, landless movements in Brazil, and the growing (illegal) labor movement in China are examples of popular resistance and working people fightings for their rights. However, the ability for them to succeed is curtailed by the power of global capitalism. No one can deny that American power is a key component to the strength of capitalism. As long as “free” trade agreements take jobs away (like agricultural ones in Mexico and automaking ones in Detroit) from workers here and abroad, immigration will occur. The US, like every country mentioned, is making efforts to stop “illegal” movements of people. The reality is as long as people have to survive, they will migrate. Most people do not immigrate out of boredom, but due to a clear lack of opportunities our of their control. The only real way in the short-term to prevent migration (which is not bad in of itself, as Flavio stated, I believe as long as capital can move freely so should labor) is to increase the living standards of people here and abroad. That means we as a movement (whether we are left or right) must move our country to a foreign policy that is both democratic in politics and economics. This means we can not force trade agreements upon people via states that drastically cut people’s standards of living. We have to accept the consequences when we do. Blaming victims of corporate globalization doesn’t help the suffering American worker and certainly won’t prevent those victims from migrating. If you are interested in lessens the amount of migrants to the USA, join us in fighting for economic policies which promote jobs building here and abroad. Join us in preventing the US from supporting states which ram through neoliberalism (mass privatization and deregulation and a decrease on government as a vehicle of the common good) over the will of those states’ working classes and the poor. Building walls (which can’t even cover the whole US-Mexican border), dividing workers, and vilifying undocumented migrants will not stop immigration. It never has, and never will. Even if you disagree with our socialist analysis and vision, history is on our side of correctly pointing out failed policies. For example, the US needs immigrants who contribute to social security without the state having spent money on them as youth to keep that pension afloat. Europe is in serious crisis as their birth rates are decreasing and pensioners are increasing. We can avoid such a problem with immigrants contributing to social security. This is just one example out of many where the US needs immigration to continue, not stop.
The environmental argument is such a misplaced argument. Corporations disregarding our environmental laws, deregulation of standards under Bush, and the habits of privileged citizens (gas guzzling SUVs) have a much worse affect on the environment than immigrants (documented or undocumented). Please don’t co-opt a valid movement fighting against environmental destruction with your anti-human rights rhetoric.
I’d trust what Maria has said already, she covered a lot of the misconceptions which have been put out there by certain media elements pretty well.The free movement of labor has to exist in a world where it is so easy to move capital across borders so quickly. At the same time, there should be no incentive to race to the bottom with regards to a labor pool. The two proposals which I think are central to creating more wealth for those who need it and maintaining basic human rights are as follows:1. the struggle for labor rights must go international. there must be enforceable minimum standards for living wages. with international organizations often beholden to governmental interests, which often simply serve as mouthpieces for strong multinational firms based in those countries (especially the WTO), it has to be the job of unions, not government, to provide underprivileged workers with the tools they need to organize and fight for a living wage. workers in the developing world must know what they are afforded in basic human rights and should be helped in their struggle to gain them, be they in Mexico, China, or Africa.2. if capital is going to be this mobile, then labor must be as well. NAFTA and farm subsidy programs have shut out farmers in Mexico and necessitated their journey to this country for work. we owe it to them to allow them to follow capital and to impose restrictions on their agricultural imports (as we do to most of the developing world) in favor of subsidizing billionaire firms here is a slap in the face, plain and simple.