Solidarity with immigrants wins the day

For more than a year, the racist organization Border Watch has tried to terrorize day laborers in the Houston area. But since the beginning, activists and workers have tracked their moves, educated themselves about their rights, and worked side by side to combat and outmaneuver the racists.

March 1 anti-Border Watch protest. WW photo: Gloria Rubac

Juan and Noemi Alvarez, with the Latin American Organization for Immigrant Rights, have visited all the day labor sites in Houston regularly for several years, learning from the workers where and when BW would show up.

BW’s goal is to intimidate workers and, when they can provoke fights, have them arrested. They get in the workers’ faces with video cameras and videotape the cars and license plates of people who pick them up for work.

For a time it seemed like BW was retreating, since every time they showed up to harass the workers, the workers would call the Alvarezes and they and other progressive activists would immediately show up at the site.

But about four months ago BW began a campaign in Spring, Texas, a suburb north of Houston that had once been an all-white neighborhood. They found a large group of mainly Latino workers gathering to find work at a gas station and convenience store owned by a Pakistani immigrant.

Although the BW presence had been declining in Spring for almost two months, about 17 of them came out two weeks ago. Day laborers, local residents and activists were able to hold the area in front of the store and keep most of the racists at a distance. But BW leader Curtis Collier announced that they would move into the area the next week regardless of whether activists were already there.

The progressive organizations that had been working the Spring site since last November called for a large turnout, stressing that they did not want a physical confrontation, but they weren’t going to let BW retake the area used in the past to videotape and harass the day laborers.

BW boasted they would retake a grassy area in front of a store and gas station, where day laborers gather, on March 1. But on that day, activists gathered before sunrise at the site, forcing the two BW members who arrived at 6:00 a.m. to sit across the street all day with their video cameras and flags.

With a strong turnout of community members and activists, BW was not able to carry out their threat. Workers were hired out for the day without incident.

Joining BW that day was a racist Harris County sheriff’s lieutenant, Louis Guthrie, who stood there wearing his badge and gun on his belt. Guthrie is a candidate for constable and activists have had picket lines outside the Texas early-voting site in Spring to let people know where he stands on workers’ rights.

The demonstrations in solidarity with the workers will continue until BW leaves the area and leaves the workers to do what they gather to do—put in an honest day’s work so they can take care of their families.

The demonstrations are being organized by the Latin American Organization for Immigrant Rights, Mexicanos en Acción, Progressive Workers Organizing Committee, Houston Anti-Racist Action, Los Patriotas Latinos, Irish Unity Committee, America for All, CRECEN, and the International Socialist Organization.