Immigrants need full civil rights

Alejandro Murrieta Ahumada WW photo

My involvement with those who later formed the core of the March 25 Coalition started last summer. We organized along the California-Mexico border against the armed vigilante group called the Minute Men, who set up ambushes to murder migrants as they crossed over the border. Our task was to organize border communities against them, march large opposition groups into their camps, and search out their ambush sights armed only with cameras, spotlights and outrage.

This outrage was shared by the Latino community and reached its boiling point when the House of Representatives approved HR 4437 in December 2005. We knew then that it was time to start organizing for mass mobilizations.

In early March, Chicago gave a great impetus to the immigrant rights movement. The historic mobilization of 600,000 showed tremendous courage and set an example for the rest of the country by fearlessly marching while many risked deportation.

Then on March 25, the immigrant community clearly demonstrated that it had taken history into its own hands, showing a complete immunity to fear and the paralysis that accompanies it. Over a million and a half marched that day demanding an end to the draconian Sensenbrenner bill and insisting on complete amnesty for all undocumented immigrants.

This great success was quickly surpassed in numbers and impact by the Gran Paro Americano of May 1, the “Great American Boycott,” a day without an immigrant, called for and organized by the March 25 Coalition with the support and assistance of many organizations throughout the country.

Nearly 2 million missed work or school to participate on May 1 in downtown Los Angeles. Over a million more participated in marches or stayed home in the surrounding areas of Southern California, in spite of the opposition of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the cardinal of the Catholic Diocese, many unions and NGOs, which called for people to go to work and school.

The great task before us now is to once again change the debate and keep out compromise legislation that provides for guest worker programs and militarization of the borders. We must not support or give quarter to any organizations, politicians, unions, or individuals that support the compromise legislation.

This is a worldwide movement that has not only begun to write its own history, but has the power to write the next chapter as well. It must include:

* Full amnesty for all undocumented workers and their families;

* Full labor and civil rights for all workers;

* No further militarization that contri butes to lives being lost in the border regions;

* Reunification of families;

* Full prosecution and imprisonment of fascist domestic terrorists who are promoting genocide against immigrant brothers and sisters.

—Alejandro Murrieta Ahumada, Inland Empire Association of the descendants of Joaquin Murrieta