April
17 , 2006
All Eyes on May Day
A Real Day Without
Mexicans?
By JOHN ROSS
Outgoing
Mexican president Vicente Fox's long-treasured pipedream of an immigration
agreement with Washington went up in smoke in early April when Republican
senators torpedoed a compromise measure that would have legalized
millions of undocumented workers living north of the border and
guaranteed hundreds of thousands of unemployed Mexicans short-term
jobs in the U.S.
But
the proposed reform carried by Senators Ted Kennedy (Dem Ma.) and
John McCain (Rep. Ariz.) would have also paved the way for the mass
deportation of 3.4 million Mexicans now living in the U.S., the
largest forced repatriation in the annals of the Americas.
From
the first days of his presidency in 2000 – Fox was elected
the same year as George Bush – the Mexican chief of state
has made an immigration agreement with Washington the defining issue
in his stewardship of the nation – and has been repeatedly
rebuffed by his White House counterpart.
"The Whole Enchilada", a concept coined by Fox's first
foreign minister Jorge Castaneda Jr. – both legalization and
a guest worker program in the same package – was put on the
table during Vicente Fox's first state visit to Washington in September
2001 and excited mild interest in the Bush inner circle. At that
time, legalization numbers were in the 3,000,000 range, less than
half of the Mexicans now living in the U.S., according to statistics
compiled by the Pew Hispanic Research Foundation.
But
the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington a few days after
the huddle with Bush derailed Fox's dream as the border shut down
and Mexican workers were adjudged potential terrorists by U.S. security
agencies. The Whole Enchilada went down the drain.
Then
in 2004, Bush, with an eye to upping his numbers among Latino votes
in the coming presidential elections, fished half of the enchilada
out of the garbage and proposed a guest worker program to accommodate
U.S. business needs for a stable supply of low-paid Mexican labor.
No legalization program was attached – Bush loathes legalization,
which would be tantamount to an "amnesty" that would reward
"law breakers" and lead to "anarchy" in his
words.
Although
no guest worker program was actually ever proposed, the initiative
was applauded by Fox and Bush took 44% of the U.S. Latino vote,
up 14 points over 2000. Two years later, with an anti-immigration
backlash in full flower, the U.S. president has revived his guest
worker proposal – to accompany forceful border security measures
as spelled out by the U.S. House of Representatives in HB 4437 passed
in November 2004 and the most virulent anti-immigrant bill introduced
in Congress since the 19th century alien exclusions acts.
Dubbed
the "Ley-Sensenbrenner" here after the nativist Wisconsin
Republican who guided the bill through the House, HB 4437 would
criminalize 12 million undocumented workers in the U.S., about 56%
of them Mexicans - felony penalties could be applied if Sensenbrenner
becomes the law of the land. The bill also criminalizes all humanitarian
aid provided for undocumented workers by the Catholic Church and
other social agencies, a transgression that would be punishable
by five years in prison. The Ley Sensenbrenner also allocates tens
of millions for the construction of 700 miles of walls along the
border in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona and doubles the size of
the U.S. Border Patrol (the "Migra") to 30,000.
The specter of the Ley Sensenbrenner being voted up by the Senate
and the demand for real immigration reform that would offer a path
towards citizenship has precipitated unprecedented mobilization
by both documented and undocumented Mexicans living in the U.,S.
Like
a giant awakening from long hibernation, this March and April nearly
2,000.000 Mexicans and dozens of other immigrant groupings took
to the streets of U.S. cities to vindicate these demands. The mobilizations
began in Chicago, a city built on immigrant labor, when a half million
mostly Mexicans turned out this past March 10th. Two weeks later,
500,000 marched in Los Angeles. Although the two cities contain
the largest Mexican populations in the U.S., the campaign snowballed
into dozens of smaller cities: 500,000 marched in Dallas on April
9th, the largest political demonstration in Texas history. 300,000
marched in Phoenix Arizona the next day. Even Salt Lake City, not
known as a destination for Mexican workers, drummed up a reported
50,000.
In
New York City, Mexicans, the fastest growing ethnic minority in
that melting pot metropolis were joined by strong Latin American,
African, Chinese, Arab, and even Irish contingents. 100,000 gathered
in the U.S. capital on April 10th at the Washington monument invoking
the memory of Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington. A new
civil rights movement was being born, trumpeted Senator Kennedy.
"Aqui estamos y no nos vamos!" ("Here we are and
we're not leaving!") shouted marchers, "No One Is Illegal!"
and "Si Se Puedes!" ("Yes you can!"), the battle
cry of Chicano martyr Cesar Chavez, the 15th anniversary of whose
death coincided with the mobilizations. At first the marches unfurled
against a sea of red, white, and green Mexican flags.
Almost
overnight, this unexpected outburst of indignation and resistance
was shaped from a rainbow of resources into a national (and bi-national)
movement. Old line Latino political organizations such as La Raza
Council, the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA). the
League of Latin Voters (LULAC), MALDEF (a sort of Mexican-American
NAACP), and the Mexican Hermanidad (the late Bert Corona's stronghold)
hooked up with unlikely political allies in regional service clubs
that have become a driving force among Mexicans living in the U.S.
With Mexican workers now sending $16 to $20 billion USD home each
year, these clubs from feeder states like Zacatecas, Michoacan,
Guanajuato, and Jalisco have increasing political clout on both
sides of the border.
In
metropolitan areas with substantial Mexican and Mexican-American
populations, wildly popular local disc jockeys such as "El
Mandril", "El Cucuy", and "Piolin" in Los
Angeles and Chicago were brought on board and volunteered to get
the word out. Teenage (and pre-teen) students from San Jose California
to El Paso Texas abandoned their classrooms and marched from school
to school to build support for the rallies. The Catholic Church
provided religious legitimacy to the mobilizations – Los Angeles's
Cardinal Roger Mahoney sent a thousand priests in handcuffs to Washington
for the first day of Senate hearings to graphically protest the
anti-good Samaritan penalties in the Sensenbrenner "law."
Both
Big Labor and Big Business rounded out this impromptu coalition.
Unions like the Service Employees International and the Hotel and
Restaurant Workers with big Mexican memberships (both just bolted
the AFL-CIO) turned out tens of thousands. On the other side of
the ledger, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed guest worker and
legalization efforts that would insure business an ample supply
of exploitable labor.
The
spring mobilizations constituted what is called in Mexico a "coyuntura",
literally a "coming together", but perhaps best translated
in American as "a singular moment." And yet the broad-based
spectrum of the movement and the most massive public demonstrations
since the beginning of the U.S. war against Iraq hardly seemed to
have any impact on Congress where the Senate badly fumbled the ball
– a compromise version of Kennedy-McCain failed to muster
up 40 votes on the floor and Republicans, under the baton of majority
leader Dr. Bill Frist, McCain's leading rival to succeed Bush in
2008, introduced so many poison pill amendments that the proposed
final product would have been indistinguishable from the "Ley
Sensenbrenner." Just then Jesus Christ intervened and Congress
went home for a two week Easter recess.
Although the debate could resume in May, it seems like the "coyuntura"
for meaningful reform has passed for now and will not be resuscitated
until at least after November congressional elections. Any bill
that eventually emerges from the Senate would have to be reconciled
with Sensenbrenner, which passed the House by almost a hundred votes.
At the end of the line, George Bush reserves the right to veto any
law he doesn't like – and he doesn't like "legalization".
"We
march today and vote tomorrow" is a popular cry in the streets
of North America this spring but whether those on the march can
or will have much to say about the direction of future U.S. elections
is dubious. Many participants are non-citizens (both legal and illegal)
who do not vote in U.S. elections, and for those who might qualify
for citizenship under the most liberal proposals, voting is still
16 years down the line, by which time many of the incumbents will
be dead.
Nonetheless, the apparent demise of the Senate compromise bill has
a silver lining for Mexicans living in the U.S. Under its provisions,
warmly championed by Vicente Fox ("a victory for those of us
who believe immigration is an enrichment"), 7,000,000 undocumented
workers, 4,000,000 of them Mexicans, who have resided in the U.S.
for five years or longer could be placed on a citizenship track
by paying $2000 fines and all back taxes for every member of their
family, a sum that will be prohibitive for many "indocumentados."
They will elect to continue to live undocumented in the shadowy
corners of America.
Another
2.4 million Mexicans out of a total 4,000,000 undocumented workers
who have been in El Norte for two to five years would have to leave
the U.S. and reapply as guest workers with no assurances of re-entry.
Finally, 900,000 Mexicans (out of a total 2,000,000) with less than
two years in residence, would be forced to return to Mexico without
recourse. The total number of Mexicans to be repatriated –
3.4 million – would constitute a return migration of biblical
proportions and the largest forced deportation in the history of
the Americas.
How
this forced repatriation would be carried out boggles the mind.
Would police and military sweep neighborhoods as they did in Los
Angeles in 1931 and force families from their homes? Would detention
camps be established in remote areas as the U.S. inflicted upon
the Japanese in 1941?
Moreover,
the deportation of millions of unemployed workers will cripple the
Mexican economy and ratchet social tensions up to the breaking point.
The border, a safety valve for frustrated Mexican youth, would soon
look like Iraq.
Despite
so ominous a scenario, anti-immigration zealotry is at fever pitch
north of the border. One Arizona talk show host, Brian James, upped
the bar by calling upon his listeners to converge on the border
one day each week with high-powered weapons (he even advised what
caliber of ammunition to carry) and shoot to kill those coming across
the line. A Mexican restaurant in San Diego was firebombed and the
words "Fuck Mex!" spray-painted on its walls. Los Angeles's
first Mexican-American mayor Antonio Villaraigoza has received dozens
of death threats. Vigilante Minuteman and women (including one German
who had been recently naturalized) camped out on the Douglas Arizona
ranch of Roger Barnett, whose "Ranch Rescue" conducts
for-profit "human safaris" against undocumented migrants,
and barbecued Mexican flags to counter the April 10th pro-immigrant
mobilizations.
The
Mexican flag is right in the eye of the backlash. Watching them
fly on television screens across the United States was "a repellent
spectacle" for Fox News anchor Brett Hume, a sentiment echoed
by CNN's anti-Mexican mouthpiece Lou Dobbs. To temper the backlash,
march organizers began putting the Stars and Stripes in the hands
of Mexican marchers. Meanwhile, on this side of the border, Mexicans
marching in solidarity with their "paisanos", wavied the
Mexican flag and the U.S. flag was burned at demonstrations in front
of embassies and consulates.
Despite
the deep-sixing of a Senate bill that would have legalized millions
and its probable replacement by something that looks a lot like
Sensenbrenner, Mexicans are not going away – or if they do
go away, it will only be for one day, May 1st, when a national boycott
based on the popular film "A Day Without Mexicans" (now
retitled "A Day Without Immigrants") has been called.
Mexicans and their allies across the U.S. are urged not to go to
work or school or shop.
May
1st is, of course, International Workers Day and with high concentrations
of Mexicans working in construction, farming, meat-packing, janitorial,
hotels (700,000 according to industry sources), restaurants (600,000)
and other services, the impact could be pronounced – no pork
chop would be packed or house roofed in the U.S. if the Mexicans
were sent home. "Who will take care of your kids?" a sign
at the New York City march asked.
Gearing
up for possible mass walkouts May 1st, industries in Houston, Detroit,
Seattle, and a half dozen other cities have already fired hundreds
of Mexican workers who participated in earlier marches. Unions,
ever eager to organize the unorganized, are challenging the firings.
Will
the voice of Mexicans and all immigrants be heard in U.S. halls
of power? Congress and the White House are notorious for not listening
to aroused constituents. When 12,000,000 people around the world
– 2,000,000 of them on the streets of the United States -
marched to stop a war that had not yet begun February 15th, 2003,
George Bush turned a deaf ear. Today, 150,000 Iraqis and nearly
2400 U.S. troops are dead.
John
Ross is the author of Murdered
By Capitalism.
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