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Glad to see ICE doing such a good job.

Deport the illegals!

Illegal Alien = Criminal!

A great nation of the exploited
 http://www.isreview.org/issues/49/review-akers.shtml

Justin Akers Chacón and Mike Davis
NO ONE IS ILLEGAL: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Haymarket Books, 2006
240 pages $14

Review by NESTOR CASAS

NO ONE is Illegal is a timely contribution to the new movement for immigrant rights. Mike Davis and Justin Akers Chacón have made a critical study of immigrant workers-and of the popular and official response to immigrants within the United States. And while the new movement has risen, so has right-wing vigilantism-just in time to boost the posture of a discredited and fractured Republican Party. In this context, No One is Illegal can serve as a working handbook to help pull together a left wing of the movement and to counter the Right's domination of the debate.
The book offers history and analysis to challenge the myths of immigration and expose the realities. The same goes for the photographs by Julián Cardona, which humanize the dire situation of those who must move across the planet to find subsistence.
The historical treatment repeatedly turns up lessons for today. Politicians who are eager to make “compromises” on the rights of immigrants are now attempting to sell the movement short with a new guest-worker program. Akers Chacón lays out in clear detail why this possibility is not an acceptable option by looking back to the Bracero Program. Between 1942 and 1964, the program contracted some 4.8 million Mexican workers to work on a seasonal basis, primarily in agriculture. Akers Chacón writes that such guest-worker programs

have instituted a caste system of labor, by depriving their “guests” of the fundamental rights purportedly accorded to workers in a democratic society, and created a segregated class of workers whose participation in society-beyond contributing the products of their arms, legs and sweat-is proscribed by law.… A new guest-worker program would once again place absolute control over the workers back in the hands of the agricultural bosses.

Mike Davis focuses on the history of vigilantism in California. “Indeed,” writes Davis, “vigilantism-ethno-racial and class violence (or threat of violence) cloaked in a pseudo-populist appeal to higher laws and sovereignties-has played a far greater role in the state's history than is generally recognized.” Davis chronicles the succession of minority groups that have shared, at different periods under different political situations, a condition that alternates between serving as crucial labor and serving as scapegoats to be victimized by brutal repression.
Davis argues that vigilantism is both the result of the political climate and a significant contributor to it. He writes:

It would be a mistake to underestimate the impact of the fanatics in camouflage suits.… [They] have had an electrifying impact on the conservative grassroots. For the first time, the Bush administration has felt seriously embattled-not by Democrats-but by the anti-immigrant rebellion on its own flanks.

The tradition of popular violence, and its connection with official politics, goes back as far as the monstrous era of Manifest Destiny, when Native Americans were cleared from the land to make way for whites. “The abduction or murder of Indians was subsidized by the state government,” Davis writes, “which issued bonds to volunteer companies to exterminate California's first peoples.”
In the early twentieth century, when Japanese immigrants began to succeed in agriculture and became landowners, wealthy Anglo California growers struck back. The Japanese became targets of violence, Anglo schools were created to exclude Japanese children, and the 1913 Alien Land Law finally prohibited the ownership of land by Japanese nationals. This last attack provoked street protests in Japan, and certain forces in the Japanese government, which was then a close ally of the U.S., considered declaring war on California.
The experience of racism within the working class itself has had different effects in different circumstances-depending especially on the general level of struggle and organization. When these have been low, the racist ideas promoted by the propertied have held back greater class unity and struggle. Akers Chacón notes:

The political segregation of workers based on citizenship gradually segregated all immigrant workers from the rest of the working class. Many native-born workers and their unions became convinced that there was something to be gained by excluding immigrants, even though in practice it led to the decline in the conditions of labor for all workers.

Indeed, it was the policy of the AFL and later, the AFL-CIO, to oppose unionizing among immigrant workers for most of the twentieth century.
But there are also examples of trade unions that took the right side in immigration politics. Davis and Akers Chacón explode the caricature of malleable and ignorant migrant workers by laying out the history of immigrants fighting to organize unions, often on multiracial lines and under extreme repression.
The struggles of immigrants continue to be an integral force in the struggle of the working class. This truth extends from the German immigrants who fought alongside native-born workers for the eight-hour workday-and created May Day in the process-to the millions of workers who came out in the largest demonstrations in U.S. history on the most recent May Day, some 120 years later.
As in the eight-hours agitation, socialists and other radicals continued to play a key role in uniting the native-born with immigrant workers. Dr. Julius Hammer of the U.S. Socialist Labor Party said,

There is no middle coarse on this question of immigration and emigration. Either you support restrictions on immigration, or you energetically combat it. Legal restrictions on immigration must be rejected… We must create a great nation of the exploited.

Akers Chacón focuses on the struggle at the U.S.-Mexico border, but he makes it clear that immigration politics, and borders themselves, must be understood in the context of global capitalism. He examines neoliberalism as a primary material cause for immigration. Akers Chacón writes:

The global institution of neoliberalism set the stage for further economic convulsions. Out-migration served as a release valve for the socially dislocated. This by-product was welcomed by a U.S. market eager to absorb not only Mexican imports, but also its reserve armies of labor, since migrants could be paid less and leveraged against unionized workers.

Davis and Akers Chacón stress the need for an international working-class movement against capitalist exploitation, including a struggle against attempts to control and fracture the working class through racism and borders. Works like No One is Illegal can help deepen the perspective of the immigrant rights movement-a movement that continues to develop today-and help it blaze a trail toward the kind of movement that the whole class needs.

Why We All Must Support Immigrants’ Rights

When her husband Victor Perez-Lopez was deported to Mexico, Rosa Lopez had few choices. With no money to care for her child, knowing things would be much worse in Mexico, Rosa did what she had to do for her son. "When his momma brought this baby here and left him, tears rolled down her face and mine, too," family friend and childcare worker Julie Rodas said. "She said, 'Julie, will you please take care of my son because I have no money, no way of paying rent?'"1 Victor, Rosa, and their child were the victims of a recent immigrant raid in Stillmoore, Georgia, that tore dozens of families apart and cut off their only means of providing for their children.

Thirty-five year-old Herminia Silva of Oaxaca, Mexico and her daughter Adriana traveled for five days to cross the border to reunite with her husband Feliciano and their two sons, Eliseo and Feliciano, Jr., in Illinois.2 Poisoned by a cactus plant, gangrene infection spread throughout her body. Given prompt medical attention, her injury would not have been life threatening. She soon died in a hospital bed after making her way back to her family. 3

These women’s stories should be the starting point for a discussion on the rights of immigrant workers. The corporate media has recently taken notice of the lives of immigrants in the context of a debate in Congress over homeland security and a declining economy that has at times sounded hysterical and at other times downright racist. Both documented and undocumented immigrants, however, have been under attack for much longer.

Contrary to the popular myth of America as a melting pot that always welcomes tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the ruling class, the class with the most wealth and therefore the most political power, in the United States has a long history of hostility to immigrants and has actively sought to pit the native-born workers against those born elsewhere. In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, giving the President arbitrary powers to exclude or deport foreigners deemed dangerous and to prosecute anyone who criticized the government. The Act was used mainly to imprison immigrant editors and pamphleteers. Under pressure from California and other Western states, Congress passed the nation's first immigration restriction targeting a specific ethnic or racial group, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The Immigration and Naturalization Service initiated “Operation Wetback” in 1954 to remove undocumented workers, specifically Mexican nationals, from the southwestern US twelve years after the government negotiated with Mexico to create a guest workers program to bring Mexican workers into the US. During World War II, Japanese immigrants and their native-born children were rounded up and held in internment camps.

The latest wave of anti-immigrant hysteria began in the 1994 with the launching of Clinton’s Operation Gatekeeper, described by San Diego State University Professor of Chicano Studies Justin Akers-Chacón as “a U.S. government strategy to seal off popular border-crossing points using a combination of new border fences, an increase in border personnel, and the latest military hardware and training.” Contrary to the operation’s promotion as a policy of “prevention through deterrence,” the militarization of the southern border was instead “a death sentence for many immigrants crossing the border and the latest policy directed at controlling the flow of Mexican labor.” There have been more than 600 documented deaths of immigrants seeking to cross the border since Operation Gatekeeper took effect. 4

Racists in California launched their own anti-immigrant attack at the state level by putting Proposition 187 on the state ballot in the same year as Clinton’s border plan. After a prominent support from Republican Governor Pete Wilson and a media smear campaign which conjured images of invading hordes of Mexican women having children and living in luxury on taxpayer dollars, the initiative passed with nearly 60 percent of the vote, but was later overturned by a federal court.

The War on Terror has afforded the government new opportunities and new weapons with which to wage war on working people, regardless of immigration status. In the wake of 9/11/01, hundreds of people around the country were rounded up in raids promoted by the government as efforts to crack down on terrorists right here in America. The majority was of Arab descent. Not a single one of those arrested has ever been charged with terrorism.5 The Immigration and Naturalization Service was restructured and placed under the control of the Department of Homeland Security. While Clinton’s anti-immigrant purges of the 90s focused on workers directly impacted by the treacherous NAFTA treaty, the Bush Administration has invoked fears of a terrorist attack and expanded the targets to all dark-skinned people who happen not be born in the United States.

The US House recently voted to build a 700-mile fence along the southern border. The construction of a border fence serves two functions: to enrich the construction and related firms who will win contracts for these jobs and to make crossing the border more dangerous for those forced by economic conditions to migrate. The debate over immigration cannot be rationally understood without examining the social conditions that create the need for working people to travel great distances, oftentimes at great peril to their own lives, to take low-paying jobs, often hazardous to their own health. The economic impact of free trade agreements like the bipartisan NAFTA and CAFTA continues to destroy the traditional economies, especially farming, in Mexico and Central America, forcing workers take move north to look for work to support their families. While politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties employ different rhetoric in their proposals for solving the “immigration crisis”, both parties eagerly support free trade agreements that create the conditions for mass migration in the first place.

The media debate over immigration reform frames the issue in xenophobic terms, painting undocumented workers as “outsiders,” a foreign body invading the homeland. The reality is quite different. Immigrants, documented and undocumented, blend seamlessly into our communities because they are a part of our communities. The question is not whether they take jobs away from citizens or whether they take jobs citizens won’t take. The question is why so many employers are willing to pit native-born workers against foreign-born workers in an effort to push down the wages of all workers. Union organizer Clark Gilman mocks the argument some employers put forth that immigrants are doing jobs Americans don't want. "There aren't enough American citizens willing to live eight people to an apartment for $60 a day working six 10-hour days a week.”

Big business – in particular industries with low-wages and high numbers of on-the-job injuries such as construction, restaurants, hotels, and agriculture -- favors a guest worker program. As many as 25% of the workers in the construction industry are undocumented. According to the Seattle Times, the construction industry, led by the Associated General Contractors of America and the National Association of Home Builders, opposes any national policy that would deport vast numbers of illegal immigrants, saying they help alleviate a chronic shortage of workers, that is, a chronic shortage of workers within the US who are willing to work for lower wages and fewer benefits. By hiring undocumented workers, big industries get away with paying lower wages, fewer benefits, and even further exploiting employees whose immigration status renders their legal and workplace rights doubtful. Some employers simply refuse to pay undocumented workers their wages when the work is done, challenging undocumented workers to report them to unsympathetic government authorities. Some are now touting the benefits of undocumented workers, claiming they work harder for less money. This sounds less like a compliment than an excuse not to pay living wages.

In the meantime, corporate profits before taxes in construction were $21,932,000,000 in 2002, at the beginning of the recovery from the recession of 2001-2002. 6 The construction industry as a whole saw its biggest increase in growth in twenty years in 2004. 7 Profits have increased since then. Instead of paying higher wages to all workers, CEOs prefer to pocket the surplus value created by exploited labor in the form of profit. Workers have been working harder and longer for less money to produce more for their bosses to keep.

The language of the anti-immigrant movement is based on the notion of “illegal” people. No worker is illegal. As Natívo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association and organizer of one of the largest demonstrations in US history this past May, argues “All serious economists recognize that labor produces value…. If all workers (labor) produce value, wealth for the country, immigrant workers do so to a greater degree. They do not enjoy a collective bargaining agreement, vacations, pensions, health insurance, etc. as do many other workers, particularly those who belong to a union. Therefore, they are producing greater value for the employer. It is no secret why corporations "outsource" and go abroad in search of cheaper labor, land, natural resources, etc. But only labor, of the three factors just mentioned, produce value over and above what is required to sustain the worker. Certainly this value is not considered illegal, therefore, neither should the producers of such value be considered illegal.”8 We don’t clamor that the produce in our grocery stores picked by “illegal” immigrants be confiscated or that homes constructed with “illegal” labor be destroyed. Why are the workers who create value in our society deemed “illegal” but not the value they create?

Documented and undocumented workers alike should be raising the demand for a higher wage for all, full union rights, and amnesty. The bosses can certainly afford it, as corporate profits are higher today than they have ever been in history. In 1973, 40 percent of construction workers were unionized, according to economist Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., liberal research group. Today, organized labor's share of the industry work force has fallen to 13 percent. As corporate profits have radically increased over the last thirty years, workers’ real wages have declined. As the power to demand concessions from employers has decreased, so have wages for all workers.

Working people should reject the racist ideology that divides workers and take up demands for all workers, regardless of immigration status. The immigrant rights movement must be examined in terms of the social dynamic at work: as part and parcel of Corporate America’s decades-long attack on all workers. In such light, the next step in this new civil rights movement is clear: native-born workers must stand alongside immigrant workers and support the demand of all workers for higher wages, more union rights, more civil rights, and unconditional legalization for all undocumented workers. They’ve already paid for citizenship in blood, sweat, and tears. We must support amnesty for all, equal rights for all workers, and an end to deportations because an injury to one is an injury to all.

1 Bynum, Russ. “Immigration raids leave Georgia town bereft, stunned.” Seattle Times, September 16, 2006.
2 “Immigrant Herminia Silva Dies Crossing Border.” Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Justice and Peace/Integrity of Creation, August 8, 2006 ( http://www.omiusajpic.org/docs/border-immigration/press_release_herminia_silva.htm).
3 Sustar, Lee. “Don’t let them deport Elvira Arrellano.” Socialist Worker, Issue 599, September 1, 2006 ( http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/599/599_04_Elvira.shtml).
4 Akers, Justin. “Operation Gatekeeper: Militarizing the border.” International Socialist Review, Issue 18, June-July 2001 ( http://isreview.org/issues/18/gatekeeper.shtml).
5 Smith, Sharon. “Stoking fear to attack immigrants.” Socialist Worker, Issue 457, September 13, 2003 ( http://www.socialistworker.org/2003-2/457/457_07_Detentions.shtml).
6 Evans, Donald L., Secretary, Department of Commerce; Cooper, Kathleen B., Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, Economics and Statistics Administration; Landefeld, J. Steven, Director, & Marcuss, Rosemary D., Deputy Director, Economics and Statistic Administration; Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Corporate Profits: Profits before taxes, Profits tax liability, and Dividends.” September 2002.
7 McConnell Jr., William, PE, Vertex Engineering Services, Inc., “State of the U.S. Construction Industry, 2005/2006.”
8 Jacobs, Ron. “An Interview with Natívo Lopez: ‘The Immigrants’ Rights Movement is in Good Hands.’” Counterpunch, August 28, 2006. ( http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs08282006.html)

we white folks of european descent are the illegal aliens. who invited our ancestors to come to the Americas, kill indigenous people, and steal their land? even when our ancestors established a government here and made our presence "legal" with treaties, our government has broken every treaty, so we are here illegally by our own standards.

and 1/3 of this country used to be Mexico, so many of us in this country are on Mexican land, not the other way around.

think about who really has the right to be here. is it you? or even me?

furthermore, people who come to this country leave their lands of origin to escape oppression and lack of opportunities---which US government and corporations create. so if you're looking for someone to blame for immigrants coming here...

moreover, rabid anti-immigrant people like yourself are racist nazi-esque pieces of shit, poor excuses for human beings, and you should be lynched.

We still need people to clean toilets after the revolution... Let em work with what they know.

The argument that Mexico "owned" Native American land is bullshit. It is a continuation of old thinking. We don't want to go backward, we want to go forward -- toward a world that permits people to live without regard to the mental construct of an economic or political border.

Any claim Mexico's might have to land inside the current U.S. borders is based on old world imperialism. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI (Lucrezia Borgia's dad) simply drew a line around the world and gave the western half to Spain and the eastern half to Portugal, telling them to conquer the lands in their respective hemispheres and convert the native peoples to Christianity.  By this arrangement, yes, the western half of the world was claimed by Spain....and a smaller part of it later by Mexico.

IMHO, past or present borders should not be part of this discussion at all. Human beings are a global animal -- let's not place them in mental cages by calling them Mexicans or Americans or Canadians.

to ./:

yes, you're right about borders and mexico. i should be more clear in my writing. i don't think that the lower part of what it today the united states should belong to the government of mexico. it was "owned" by mexico previous to the mexican-american war, but the mexican gov't is imperialist and genocidal and eurocentric just as the us gov't.

the indigenous people living in the lower US based on today's classifications could be called native american and/or mexican.

so i mean that the land belongs to the indigenous people who were there first, who could be called mexican, but it definitely does not belong to any country or gov't, whether it's the us or mexico or any other nation-state.

thanks for your clarification. i'll try to be more clear next time. but for the sake of shorter, more concise discussion, are there or should we create new terms, definitions, etc for the people we're talking about? it certainly is easier, though not accurate, to say american or mexican, the us or mexico. what are you suggestions?

so i read land belongs to the previous squatter/users....not to the orriginal claimant before him? i hear we who fled the imperialism of England etcetcetc have no claim here? have we then only the option of "return" to the soil of our genealogical forefathers? So what happens to mezkins with spick blood as well as indio blood? spades for farther south? all the eyetalians who hit argentina best go back to the rock craigs they said bye bye to?

What about this scheme is any better than the old scheme exccept the corrupt deal gets reshuffled...and the rule changes, they would come at last by the hand of those nice indiginnts... right

Can I keep my 2 amend rights until I'm happy with the jacobean reshuffle? p.s. thats not seriously posed as a question.