EU joins the U.S. in targeting immigrants

On June 18, the European Union adopted a common repressive policy toward undocumented workers who are caught by the authorities. Those arrested can be sentenced to prison for up to 18 months simply for not having legal papers, can be held without due process, no longer will be offered free legal assistance, and can be deported and kept out of every EU country for five years.

The Spanish state was among those leading the campaign against undocumented workers. Some 2,000 such workers are already being held in detention centers. Many immigrants to Europe from Latin America first go to Spain because the language barrier is lower. Millions of workers from North and Sub-Saharan Africa also migrate to the wealthier EU countries.

Ever since their economies started declining and poorly paid workers from the new EU members in Eastern Europe—Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia–started legally moving westward by the hundreds of thousands, the leading imperialist powers in Europe have further opened the spigots of racism and xenophobia.

These are the bosses’ favorite tools for intimidating workers without papers and forcing them to work clandestinely for much lower wages.

Progressive Latin American leaders reacted angrily to the new ruling. Bolivian President Evo Morales denounced the EU ruling before it was passed, and was joined later by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Paraguayan President-elect Fernando Lugo, former President Fidel Castro of Cuba, Brazilian Foreign Relations Minister Celso Amorim, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, and the head of the Organization of American States.

“If any European country begins to apply this,” said Chávez, “and puts in jail Colombians, Paraguayans, Ecuadorians, Bolivians ... then we are going to review the investments that they have here in order for us as well to apply a return order. Return their investments to them!”

Morales pointed out in the June 16 British Guardian that the “return directive ... imposes harsh terms for detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, regardless of the time they have spent in European countries, their work situation, [or] their family ties.”

Morales noted the economic consequences of this new EU policy: “For us, our emigrants represent help in development that Europeans do not give us. ... Latin America received, in 2006, a total of $68 billion sent back from abroad, more than the total foreign investment in our countries. My country, Bolivia, received more than 10 percent of its GDP in such remittances.”

He asked, “Under so-called ‘judicial protection’ we are being pressured to denationalize water, gas and telecommunications. Where is the ‘judicial protection’ for our people seeking new horizons in Europe?”

Fidel Castro, in two “Reflections” written June 20 and 22, tied the actions of the EU to Washington’s reactionary policies. In his first posting, he wrote, “The discredited way in which the European Union suspended its sanctions on Cuba on June 19 ... has absolutely no economic effect on our country. On the contrary, the United States’ extraterritorial laws and, thus, its economic and financial blockades, are still fully in effect. ...

“I want to express my contempt towards the immense hypocrisy of that decision. Such hypocrisy is made all the more evident by the brutal European measure to expel illegal immigrants from Latin American countries, some of which have populations which, in their majority, are of European origin.

“Traffickers of human beings, like drug traffickers, who take advantage of the largest and most coveted of the world’s markets, have undermined the authority and moral stature needed by any government to lead the state, spilling Latin American blood everywhere, to say nothing of those who die trying to emigrate by climbing over the humiliating border wall erected over what was once Mexican territory.

“The food and energy crises, climate change and inflation are scourging the world’s nations. As political helplessness prevails, ignorance and illusions tend to flourish.”

Castro also pointed out that what pushes people in Latin America to emigrate is the hunger and poverty that the U.S. and the developed countries of Western Europe impose on them. (cubadebate.cu)

In Spain dozens of human rights and other progressive organizations joined to hold public demonstrations or meetings on June 21 in five cities—Madrid, Málaga, Barcelona, Valencia and Tenerife—to oppose the new repressive ruling against immigrants. They chanted, “No human beings are illegal!” and demanded that the detention centers be closed.