Latin@ immigrants in the U.S.

The following paper was presented to the International Migrant Alliance conference in Hong Kong on June 15 by Teresa Gutierrez.

Teresa Gutierrez speaking at IMA conference.

“Someday the U.S. will recognize the true cost of its war on immigrants. We don’t mean in dollars, though those are squandered by the billions. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it. A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully.”

These are not my words. This is from a June 3 editorial in the New York Times. In fact, there is much in this statement that is wrong. The U.S. is not simply a nation of immigrants. It is a nation where Africans were brought in chains in one of the most genocidal crimes ever. It is a stolen nation, stolen from the Native and Mexican peoples. But I use the editorial because it demonstrates the appalling, inhumane, illegal and racist war that the U.S. government is carrying out right now against immigrants.

This war is so grave that even a mouthpiece for the bourgeoisie such as the New York Times has condemned it, not just once but several times. Even they think that the Bush administration and elements in the ruling class have gone too far.

My assignment today is to highlight in a few words the situation of Latin@ immigrants who are the largest number of undocumented in the U.S. today. But much of what is happening to Latin@s is also happening to the migrants who come to the U.S. from every corner of the globe.

The genesis of this current war is the 2006 Sensenbrenner Bill, which attempted to penalize and criminalize immigrants like never before.

But shortly before Sensenbrenner, a noted bourgeois scholar from Harvard, Samuel Huntington, wrote a piece in 2004 that was a signal of what was to come. It was an example of the ideological framework being set in preparation for this war. The right wing would soon take hold of the immigration debate and become the driving force in setting policy. Not just in Washington but on the airwaves, in the news and in the press.

Huntington’s piece was printed in Foreign Policy, a magazine published by the Carnegie Endowment. The front cover promoted: “Samuel Huntington on how Hispanic immigrants threaten America’s identity, values and way of life.” Huntington’s entire premise was that the multitude of immigrants coming to the U.S.—specifically Mexican immigrants, who are the largest percentage—are threatening the very fabric of his society.

This is what Huntington thinks of them: “The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latin@s have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami.”

Mexican migration is different for several reasons, Huntington notes. One is that the U.S. and Mexico share a border. “No other First World country has such an extensive frontier with a Third World country. No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted a historical claim to U.S. territory,” he moans.

Lastly, Huntington warns, “The U.S. ignores this challenge at its peril.”

Ignore it; it did not. Every immigration policy that has emerged in the last three years has flowed from this kind of thinking.

We must ask Huntington: Who is cutting his lawn? Who is delivering his food? Who is packing the meat that arrives on his dinner plate every night? Who is it who is working in the most dangerous industries of all? And who is dying for it?

The gap between Huntington’s views of Latin@ immigrants and the reality of their daily lives is so wide an ocean could not fill it.

Just a month before Huntington wrote this alarming piece, the Associated Press reported that one Mexican worker a day dies at a workplace in this country. One worker a day!

“A Mexican worker is four times more likely to die on the job than the average U.S.-born worker,” it reported. “These accidental deaths are almost always preventable and often gruesome: Workers are impaled, shredded in machinery, buried alive. Some are 15 years old.” Bad conditions were so widespread that the AP described the situation as an epidemic.

Since these articles have been published, conditions for Latin@ immigrants have only deteriorated. For the approximate 12 million undocumented in the U.S., life has become a living hell. Some 1.8 million are children who live in fear of seeing their parents shackled and deported.

Despite a national movement of immigrants and activists who work tirelessly to shed light on this situation, the Bush administration, Congress, the right wing and the corporations have stepped up their war of terror, just like in Iraq.

Congress has refused to pass humane pro-immigrant legislation. Yet immigration policy is being implemented every day. The stalemate in Washington gave a green light to local and state governments to enforce immigration policy on their own. This meant that the most reactionary, racist and anti-immigrant forces in local governments were given the power to enforce immigration policy. These local and state policies have been matched with a massive sweep of raids and deportations carried out by ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, now a division of the dreaded Department of Homeland Security.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, in 2007 over 1,200 immigration bills had been submitted by local lawmakers. At the same time, right-wing anti-immigrant groups grew by 600 percent. In 2005, there were fewer than 40; today there are more than 800 such groups! These include the Minutemen, Numbers Project and others.

What has this meant on a daily basis for Latin@ immigrants?

It means that Latin@s live in fear while working, while walking, while driving, at home, in the store, in the park, at the beach, while waiting at a corner to hopefully be picked up for work.

Because at any time in any place ICE or the police can stop you just for looking Latin@ to check your papers. Building codes in heavily Latin@ neighborhoods are being scrutinized under a microscope that opens the way for Gestapo-like thugs to break in. Some workers obsess about their cars and fanatically check taillights or registration in fear of being stopped for a minor traffic violation that will result in deportation. Some workers commit suicide.

There has been a 35 percent rise in hate crimes between 2003 and 2006 reported by the FBI.

It all has a racist message: Latin@s go home. In Merrimack, N.H., city legislators tried to pass an ordinance where only nearby residents could use the beach when too many Latin@s were coming from other areas to enjoy themselves in the sun.

In May, in one of the largest raids ever in Postville, Iowa, ICE raided a meatpacking plant employing a new tactic. Two hundred seventy immigrants, most from Guatemala, were arrested. Their crime? Working! They were arrested for having false documents, meaning that they were treated as criminals, not as undocumented immigrants, which is a civil violation.

In all, almost 300,000 workers were deported last year, including self-deportation.

Detentions of immigrants have become a horror story. Over 60 immigrants have died while in detention. That number may be low, but it is 60 too many, and they have died horribly. They died when their heart or blood pressure medicine was denied. They died like animals on the floor in a sickening violation of human rights.

This is why even a mouthpiece of the ruling class, the New York Times has bemoaned this dire situation. What is behind the war on Latino immigrants?

1) Racism. The fact of “the browning of America” frightens many.

2) The capitalist economic crisis. Immigrants have historically been an expendable source of cheap labor in the U.S. Welcome one minute, unwelcome the next. And today, the U.S. is reeling from an economic crisis that has only just begun. They do not want to deport 12 million. The capitalists only want them in the shadows, unorganized and frightened.

3) The imperialist forces of globalization. Around the world, the masses of humanity are fighting back against imperialist policies. Struggles against NAFTA and other World Bank/IMF policies are escalating at the same time that these policies force people to leave their home countries.

The anti-immigrant hysteria is a worldwide phenomena that can be seen in all the developed capitalist countries. Why is this an international phenomenon? Because there is a cross-border flow of migrant labor that today has reached more than 200 million people around the world. It is a wave of movable labor that has reached epic proportions.

It is the result of the capitalist system, a system that is in deep and profound crisis. Just like the ruling class cannot stop the resistance of the Iraqi people, it cannot stop the flow of humanity fighting against desperate conditions around the globe. It is a crisis where the very goods it produces cannot be bought by the very labor that produces them.

It must count on racism to divide a multinational working class so their anger and energy can be turned on one another instead of against the capitalist class.

What is the solution to this critical situation? It is what we are doing right here at this conference. Creating unity and action to build a powerful worldwide movement, which is desperately needed.

In the U.S. the immigrant rights movement must have confidence that there is power in the people. Legalization and full rights for immigrant workers will come from our struggle in the streets.

But it cannot advance without building the necessary connections with other struggles—at home and abroad. That means solidarity: with Katrina survivors, with American Axle workers, with the movements against the war, racism, sexism, and lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression and for the rights of U.S. political prisoners. And with the family of Sean Bell, who was coldly gunned down by the New York police, just like Amadou Diallo, an African migrant.

As militant labor activists say again and again: an injury to one is an injury to all. In the seeds of our struggle is the foundation to build a world with no borders, a world free of exploitation and war. We can do it.