Labor, community unite as Montserratians fight deportations

On two consecutive Saturdays in late February, Montserratians and their supporters descended on Boston's Mattapan Square to protest the termination of their Temporary Protection Status by President George W. Bush's Department of Home land Security. They have also picketed outside the Federal Building in downtown Boston.

Plymouth 1993.

After a broad speakout in the square Feb. 26, protesters formed a motorcade winding through Boston's Black, Latino and immigrant communities. Passersby demonstrated their support for the Montserratian struggle by blowing horns, waving and shouting out their support.

Plymouth 1999.

Approximately 292 Montserratians have resided in the United Sates since volcanic activity made their homeland uninhabitable.

Montserrat is a small island located in the Caribbean Sea, southeast of Puerto Rico. The total land area is only 39 square miles. There are seven active volcanoes on Montserrat. A volcano in the Soufriere Hills has been continuously active since 1995 and has caused massive destruction to the island. The continuing environmental disaster shows no sign of improving in the near future.

Montserrat's population was 12,000 before an estimated 8,000 refugees fled the island because of the volcanic activity in July 1995. The capital, Plymouth, was abandoned in 1997 and reduced to lava-covered rubble.

For the past 10 years, there has been little or no economic activity on the island. The airport was destroyed. Seaports have been closed. Agricultural labor, the main occupation in Mont serrat, is now impossible, as there is very little land that can still be cultivated.

Conditions on the island are extremely hazardous. Those build ings not leveled as a result of the volcanic disaster are now in danger of collapse. Even the island's hospital is unusable.

In March 2004, another eruption sent a massive cloud of ash into the air and pyroclastic flows down the eastern flank of the Soufriere Hills volcano. Such con ditions present a clear and pre sent danger of respiratory diseases.

Colin Riley, who came to the United States on a student visa in 1998 and attends the Massa chusetts Institute of Technology, said: "I have no geographic reference in my history. It's all under [40 feet of] ash. Not even the trees that we grew up with are there."

The volcano wiped out 18 villages and 3,500 homes, including Riley's.

Bush regime compounds disaster

On July 6, 2004, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status for Montserratians living in the United States, effective Feb. 27, 2005.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge cynically and cruelly reasoned that since the volcanic activity would continue for the foreseeable future, Mont serra tian's status was no longer temporary and therefore must be terminated.

Rep. Major R. Owens of New York has reintro duced a bill into Congress that would grant Montserratians permanent residency.

Owens said the predominately Black islanders have become the latest target of an "overwhelming backlash" against immigrants after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "You start with the Pakistanis, the Arabs, pretty soon Blacks look like Arabs to you," said Owens. He said the Bush administration is using "terrorism" as an excuse to attack the people of Montserrat.

According to Oslyn Brument, a leader of Montserrat Aspirers and Steel Work ers Local 8751 in Boston: "Our struggle has received widespread community and labor support. A strong delegation of union bus drivers and monitors, as well as City Coun cilors Chuck Tur ner and Charles Yan cey, the Irish Immigration Center, Interna tional Action Center, Women's Fight Back Network, local clergy and immigration lawyer Kirby Roberson, joined our three picket lines and rallies in the past week."

In a true act of internationalist solidarity, the Boston Irish Immigration Center was able to get the issue raised in the Irish Parliament in late February.

According to the Boston International Action Center, "This attack on Montserra tians must be seen as part and parcel of the broader racist, anti-immigrant policy of Homeland Security, including the Patriot Act and the illegal detention and deportation of Arabs and Muslims."

While Homeland Security's deadline came on Feb. 27, the Montserratian community and their supporters have expressed determination to continue this battle until justice is won.