Guest Column
What's Next for the Immigrant Rights Movement? June 30, 2006
By Nativo Lopez
THANK YOU for the opportunity to make a presentation regarding the
current status of the immigrant rights movement and attempt to answer
the hardest question: What now?
We are in an interesting interlude. Some could paint it in a negative
light, but I tend to believe that, in fact, there are very positive
things we can draw from the current situation and the double fix the
Democratic Party put this movement in, with the help of their auxiliary
organizations.
I want to talk about this. Like in any movement, the struggle doesn't
move in a direct path. It's more of a crooked path. What the Democratic
Party and its auxiliary organizations did for us during the Easter
interlude was a big favor. We don't realize it yet. We don't understand
it completely yet. I'm still analyzing that period--what occurred and
where we are today--but I have concluded definitively that they did us a
big favor.
What is the favor that they did us? Certainly we know that they betrayed
us, as historically has been the case for immigrants, for the working
class, for national minorities in the United States.
One has only to look at the 4,000-plus deaths that have occurred on the
border since the institution of the Gatekeeper program brought to us by
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of the Democratic Party, and your friend, but not
mine, President Bill Clinton. We can wail all we want against President
Bush, but we absolutely know that the 4,000-plus deaths on the border
can be directly attributed to President Clinton and Dianne Feinstein.
The Democrats were a majority in the Congress when that passed. The
1996 immigration "reform" that occurred is the predecessor to the
Patriot Act and everything the Bush administration did.
The swelling of the undocumented population in the United States,
particularly from India, Mexico, the Philippines, is directly
attributable to the legislation that was passed, which made it more
difficult for families to reunify by putting a heavy burden on them, a
heavy fine and forcing them to leave the country. Therefore,
families stayed here to face greater penalties and the possibility of
never legalizing their status.
All this is directly attributable to President Clinton, the Democratic
Party, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus--those who seek to portray
themselves today as the fighters for immigrant rights. It's a bunch of
hypocrisy.
WHY WAS there so much unity and such a great, aggressive mass
mobilization throughout the country at the beginning of 2006?
HR 4437, the author of which was Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin,
left absolutely no social space-- none whatsoever--for the immigrant to
accommodate themselves to a truly unjust system, but yet a system that
allowed him or her to find a job that perhaps others were not willing to
do and still survive and thrive and send money home to their loved ones.
HR 4437 didn't just put the burden on the immigrant. Had that been the
case, employer associations, trade associations, the masses of churches,
social organizations and even the Democratic Party would not have come
forward to join the immigrant in this fight to defeat that legislation.
There was a situation where most people in society connected in any way
with the dynamic of immigration saw the possibility of being
criminalized themselves. Therefore, they were willing to come forward
and join the immigrant in this fight.
In that sense, Sensenbrenner became a unifying factor, similar to how
Gov. Pete Wilson did in 1994, when he was the bandleader for Proposition
187. We were then united on what we did not want. But we were not as
united, we're still not united on what we want. This struggle surged
from the bases, not from the hierarchies. That's an absolute truth that
no one can deny.
To be completely honest with you, I can tell you that even the base
leaders of this movement found themselves running a marathon--out of
shape and trying to catch up to the masses that were demanding focused
and disciplined action against HR 4437.
In fact, on March 25, when over 1 million people marched in Los Angeles,
all the organizations in the coalition couldn't muster more than 500
people for security for the march. But it's a testament of the great
discipline of the immigrant community that it self-secured a situation
that could have easily gotten out of hand, had the police, LAPD and
other right-wing forces been provoked into action.
After March 25 in Los Angeles, the hierarchies sought to assert
themselves at the front of this movement, and to control it and force it
and channel it to accept a compromise that they had already cut several
years before.
That compromise that they cut several years before is embodied in the
legislation called Kennedy-McCain, crafted by Senators Ted Kennedy and
John McCain, which essentially would codify in law more onerous employer
sanctions than currently exist in law, and a massive contract-labor
program in the United States.
For those who aren't familiar with it, there is an existing
contract-labor program in the United States. It's called the H2A
program. It uses approximately 50,000 to 60,000 contract laborers,
predominantly in agriculture. The McCain-Kennedy bill would expand that
to half a million workers a year, and perhaps more.
I call it a contract-labor program, because that's what it is. They like
to call it by a benign name--a guest-worker program. As if workers are
truly guests in the American house, when we know that the contract
workers are treated as less than second-class citizens, and certainly
not as guests.
The auxiliary organizations of the Democratic Party sought to assert
themselves as leaders in this movement, and it's time to name names,
because this is important. We must be truthful with our community. The
deception must end.
The International leadership of the Service Employees International
Union; the International leadership and some of the local leadership of
UNITE HERE; the leadership of the United Farm Workers were all part of
the deal. They were all part of the betrayal. The National Council of La
Raza, the National Immigration Forum, the League of United Latin
American Citizens, the National Immigration Capital Coalition, the
Center for Community Change.
These organizations, which are based in Washington, D.C.-- lobbyists,
for the most part--are truly disconnected to the masses of immigrants
and do not represent the interests of the masses of immigrants.
They represent the interests of Corporate America, because it's
Corporate America that funds them and dictates to them the policies that
they should pursue--beneficial to Corporate America, and perhaps some
crumbs fall from the table that would benefit the immigrant community.
Certainly they need a facade to maintain the appearance of credibility,
but we know that they're corporate-funded, corporate-directed, and they
were doing the bidding of Corporate America, including those unions.
How is it possible that those three unions bolted from the AFL-CIO to
create the new progressive Change to Win coalition, and they accepted
the premise that contract labor in massive form could exist in the
United States, with those unions to be the beneficiaries by cutting
deals with Corporate America for yellow-dog collective bargaining
agreements, in which they would receive dues money from those contract
laborers.
It's shameful, and Ernesto Galarza, Burt Corona and Cesar Chavez are
turning over in their graves. The very thought that leaders of those
unions--which are part of the legacy of those three men--would be
cutting a deal with Corporate America to support bracero-type programs,
when they fought their whole lives to sunset existing bracero programs,
which existed for over three decades, and fought to prevent their
reinstitutionalization in the United States.
What I say, brothers and sisters, may be unsettling to some when this is
published, but we intend to take our show on the road and tell the truth
to the immigrant community, because there is nothing stronger than the
truth--that we have been betrayed by these institutions and individuals.
That's why I say this is a positive occurrence. Because it removes any
shadow of a doubt that such institutions represent the legitimate
interests of immigrant workers in America.
The illusion will be shattered as it becomes quite apparent to the
immigrant community that the nasty compromise the Democratic Party and
its auxiliary organizations sought to consummate in the legislation of
Hagel-Martinez was nothing but a sham and truly has nothing of merit for
the immigrant community.
THE MAY Day action, as never seen before, was truly a workers'
action--from the bottom, not from the hierarchy. The message of the
Great American Boycott surged from below--it was not imposed from
the top.
In fact, the Democratic Party; its auxiliary organizations; the National
Council of Bishops, particularly, Cardinal Roger Mahoney; Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa; and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus fought tooth and
nail, in tandem with corporate Spanish-language radio, to prevent the
message of the masses in the Great American Boycott from reaching the
ears of all immigrants throughout America, and they failed. They
absolutely failed.
The Great American Boycott was successful because literally millions of
people went into the streets, repudiating by their actions the message
of the hierarchies. Because the message of the Great American Boycott
was the message of the masses, and that's why it prevailed--it was their
own message. They imposed their message over the message of the
hierarchies, and they won.
They demonstrated to all of America that their message was more powerful
than the corporate media, their message was more powerful than the
institution of the church, their message was more powerful than the
institution of the Democratic Party and its auxiliary organizations.
They heeded their own message, and they won.
Easter in 2006 is a day to be remembered, because just before the Easter
recess, the immigrant rights movement won. It had definitively defeated
HR 4437. It had prevented the Hagel-Martinez from seeing the light of
day from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senate Minority Leader Harry
Reid, in that one instance, obeyed the message of the masses to not
compromise with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and allow
Hagel-Martinez to see the light of day.
Do you all recall that? The national debate on immigration had shifted
favorably to us--to the masses of immigrants. And in that two-week
interlude, the cardinals went to Washington, D.C., Mayor Villaraigosa
went to Washington, D.C., the Congressional Hispanic Caucus huddled with
Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid, and Eliseo Medina, international vice
president of SEIU; Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm
Workers; John Wilhelm of UNITE HERE.
They all huddled in Washington, D.C., and politically, they beat up poor
Harry Reid. And Harry Reid cut the deal. We saw Hagel- Martinez debated
in the Senate and approved by the Senate. We saw Senators Dianne
Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, the great California liberal, vote for the
border wall, vote for National Guard on the border, vote for
criminalizing employers with sanctions, vote for criminalizing
immigrants with a misdemeanor offense instead of a felony offense, vote
for eliminating due process rights to immigrants, vote for a massive
contract-labor program. These are the measures they voted for, because
this is what is contained in Hagel-Martinez.
- SENSENBRENNER AND Sensenbrenner Lite--this is what we have today on
the
table. We're fighting not just one set of letters and numbers, we're
fighting two sets of letters and numbers: HR 4437 and S2611.
But while it is a more difficult fight, the positive thing is that the
immigrant will have no illusion that Barbara Boxer or the Democratic
Party will fight to obtain what he and she truly deserve--a fair trade,
a fair exchange for their labor.
This truly is the basis and the premise of our demand of amnesty for all
immigrant workers, fully and immediately. It's a fair exchange. This is
our answer to the hypocrisy of the so-called free traders, the
neoliberals of America, when they talk about free trade.
We talk about fair trade and fair exchange--that as an immigrant worker,
if I am willing to come to America to work, to create value, to create
wealth, to create assets for America, a true fair exchange to me should
be permanent residence, immediately and fully for me and my family.
Brothers and sisters, I welcome your questions, but more your comments
and your statements and your commitment to continue in this fight--to
work with us to implement throughout the United States a popular
referendum where we will go to millions of immigrants and ask them what
they want in immigration reform. On November 7 of this year, we will ask
all immigrants to go to the ballot to vote for true, fair, humane
immigration reform.
The Republicans and the Democrats--these phonies will jostle and juggle
over who will be the majority in Congress to continue to deny the rights
of all working people. Because let us remember that with the Democrats
controlling Congress and a Democratic president, they absolutely refused
to reform federal labor law in America to allow workers to organize
unions with no impediments.
So they're no better than the Republicans in power. In fact, they do a
better job than the Republicans to prevent the working class to truly be
free in America.
Our struggle today is to eliminate all the illusions in these Democrats
and their auxiliary organizations and some of the union leaders. I say
some union leaders, because we have observed that those union leaders
who are closer to the base are more true to the base. That also applies
to the church--to the parish pastor, who is pastoring on a daily basis
and sees the suffering on a daily basis. They're closer to the truth,
because they're closer to the base.
So our job is to win over those intermediary and base leaders to have no
illusions about what their leaders are doing in Washington, D.C. And be
true to their constituencies, be true to the base, be true to the
immigrants, and work with us to build the strongest, mightiest immigrant
rights movement in America, which will spill over across all borders
throughout the world.
Because our fight, brothers and sisters, is a fight to carry the message
that the working class is an international class, and it has no borders. - _________________________________________________________
- Nativo Lopez is president of the Mexican American Political
Association.
He was a leading organizer of the huge demonstrations for immigrant
rights in Los Angeles on March 25 and May 1. He spoke at a panel
discussion about the future of the immigrant rights movement at the
Socialism 2006 conference in New York City.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)