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The movement for immigrants' rights
took an enormous leap forward two weeks ago, when a quarter-million
demonstrators, overwhelmingly Mexican-Americans, jammed Chicago's
city streets-in the middle of a workday.
This massive turnout reached
far beyond the activist community because local Spanish-language
radio hosts urged listeners to attend. And this breathtaking
show of strength instantly marginalized the anti-immigrant Minutemen
movement, able to summon only a handful of counter-protesters.
The March 10 protest is part
of a burgeoning movement that could recast the national debate
on immigration-while tapping the power of immigrants as an integral
component of the U.S. working class.
Until now, labor journalist
David Bacon noted, "Congress is divided between the supposed
'conservatives' who want to stop immigration and turn the undocumented
into criminals, and the 'liberals' who want to give employers
new guest worker programs."
The ominously titled "Border
Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act"
(HR 4437) swept through the House in December, criminalizing
undocumented immigrants and anyone-from nurses and doctors to
social workers-who provides them any assistance. The bill also
mandates the construction of a 700-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexico
border.
Not to be outdone, Senate majority
leader Bill Frist has called for "physical or electronic
barriers covering every inch of our 1,951-mile border
with Mexico," while declaring that illegal immigration poses
a "dangerous national security threat."
Democrats have recently begun
posturing as opponents of HR 4437. Senator Hillary Clinton, who
told WABC radio in 2003, "I am, you know, adamantly against
illegal immigrants," mustered a tepid sound bite against
the bill, calling it "an unworkable scheme to try to deport
11 million people, which you have to have a police state to try
to do." But she added, she stands for "strengthening
our borders in order to make us safer from the threat of terrorism."
Senators McCain and Kennedy
proposed their own "Secure America and Orderly Immigration
Act of 2005," with a guest worker program not unlike President
Bush's own initiative, offering the prospect of certain deportation
when immigrants' temporary contracts expire.
Some liberal commentators regard
undocumented immigrants as a scourge on U.S. workers-creating
the potential for dangerous alliances. Thom Hartmann, a frequent
contributor to CommonDreams.org, asked recently, "How
can progressives join with the few remaining populist Republicans
(like Lou Dobbs and Patrick Buchanan) to forge an alliance to
make [opposing illegal immigration] an all-American effort?"
But immigrant workers weaken
the bargaining power of organized labor only when they
are excluded from the legal right to bargain collectively. Neither
Republicans nor Democrats support that right.
Already, the number of immigrants
in unions grew 23 percent between 1996 and 2003, at a time when
overall union membership has been in steep decline. Immigrant
workers make up two-thirds of the members in the Service Employees
Industrial Union (SEIU).
The strike weapon is also beginning
to re-emerge in this struggle, after decades of virtual absence
on U.S. soil. On February 14, rally organizers from Philadelphia
and Southern Delaware used the slogan "A Day Without an
Immigrant" to call on immigrants to stay home from work
to highlight the importance of immigrant labor to the economy.
Two-thirds of Perdue Farm's workers in Georgetown, Delaware did
not report to work on Feb. 14-and both rallies drew 1,500.
Following suit, Chicago organizers
called for a "general strike" among immigrant workers
and students on March 10, and tens of thousands complied by walking
out at noon. Construction workers still wearing hardhats joined
restaurant workers, factory workers, and high school students,
marching alongside workers from hundreds of immigrant-owned small
businesses, while entire families marched with babies and grandparents
in tow.
Many carried American flags
alongside Mexican flags. But the American flags did not imply
unadulterated patriotism, as one handmade sign stapled to an
American flag made clear-asking, "Land of the free?"
Another read, "My Mexican son died in Iraq." And the
march's over-riding message was, "We are workers, not terrorists."
Perhaps most significantly,
the dominant chant at the March 10 protest, "Si se puede!"
("Yes we can!"), suddenly seemed realistic in this
flowering of humanity.
CounterPunch
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