Protestors, approximately six million strong, took to the streets this spring in a movement so large it surprised the politicians, the capitalists, and even the protestors themselves. It was something completely and obviously new – qualitatively new.

From Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington, D.C., from Denver to Miami and North Carolina to Wisconsin, people from all walks of life demonstrated their outrage against HR-4337, the draconian immigration legislation that proposes to make criminals out of the undocumented as well as those who aid them in any way. The chants of “We are not criminals!” and “We are America!” resounded across the United States.

Even the organizers were surprised at the extent of the mobilizations, which appeared to occur almost spontaneously and took on a life of their own. No one individual or organization could claim to have brought the demonstrators out, and none could claim to control them. Though some religious and labor leaders tried to dictate the form or substance of the mobilizations, they failed to do so – a lesson the ruling class did not fail to observe.

These tremendous protests for immigrant rights marked the beginning of a movement to insure the livelihood of the immigrant sector of the working class. Now is time to take stock of the meaning of the movement around immigration reform, the lessons being learned, and what will keep it on course.

The brutal legislation passed by the House sparked the massive protests, but the problem about the “illegality” of 12 million immigrants here in the United States has been developing for years. And immigration is a problem not just in the United States – it is global. Many factors have led to the millions of people abandoning their countries. But the underlying processes are the worldwide introduction of labor-replacing technology and globalization’s generalization of its effects, including the outright destruction of social programs. These processes have given rise to the qualitatively new character of the recent protests.

What is new is that we are witnessing a worldwide movement of workers fighting for their economic right to provide for their families with food, housing, education, and health care. Millions upon millions of workers are migrating from Mexico to the United States, from Guatemala to Mexico, from Bolivia to Chile, from Africa to Spain, France, and England, and from Poland to any country that will take them in. Capitalism in the age of electronics pushes people out of the labor market in their home countries. It forces them, in the millions, to migrate to foreign lands, searching for a buyer for their labor power at whatever price.

Inevitably, the class character of this movement becomes entangled with the extensive and profound civil- and human-rights violations to which immigrants are constantly subjected. But within this overall process, we can see the outlines of a new class in formation, one that exists across borders and has common interests by virtue of its common economic plight. The battle for immigrant rights is a crucial part of the fight for the ideological and organizational development of this class as a class.

The fact that approximately six million people took a stand – whether they realized it or not – for the undocumented workers to exercise their right to house, feed, and clothe their family – cannot be underestimated or forgotten. The immigration rallies and marches are a harbinger of future widespread mobilization by the rest of the U.S. working class, as it begins to fight in its class interests.

Mass migration: outcome of globalization

Migration today is a complex issue which touches every country in the world. According to a United Nations report, 190 countries are now either points of origin, of transit, or of destination for migrants, often all three at the same time. The United Nations estimates that there are 175 million country-to-country migrants in the world, and that does not count the migrants within countries – the dispossessed corn farmers of Mexico piling into Mexico City slums, the displaced Midwestern factory workers spreading out through the rest of the U.S. looking for anything that pays.

While some of the world’s immigrants have emigrated due to civil wars, the vast majority are in motion simply in search of their livelihood. This is a direct result of globalization and its laws of development – a modern mass exodus of peoples attempting desperately to escape poverty and starvation in their native countries.

Consequently, today’s migrants go where they can sell their only commodity – their ability to work – in order to support themselves and their families. Mexico is a prime example. Mexicans represent some 62 percent of the 12 million undocumented here in the United States as well as 85 percent of those detained by the Border Patrol. It is easy to see why. In Mexico the disparity between rich and poor translates into half of the population living in poverty and one-fifth living in extreme poverty in 2002. The bottom 40 percent of the population shares only 11 percent of the wealth. There is 40 percent unemployment or underemployment in Mexico, and those who work earn on average $4 dollars a day. 

It was not always so. According the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition-Resource Center of the Americas, three years prior to the enactment of The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), immigration from Mexico was actually decreasing. In the three years after NAFTA was implemented, immigration to the U.S. increased by 61 percent, almost two-thirds.

Under such conditions, immigrants such as those from Mexico have no means to support themselves when they return home. This accounts for the chant heard throughout the country in immigrant protests: “Here we are, and we are here to stay. If you deport us, we will be right back.” Rather than face the dangers of going back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. and being caught and deported, or worse, of suffering the prospect of a slow death in the border deserts, the undocumented worker began to put down roots here in the United States. They began to integrate themselves into the American social fabric, buying homes, sending their children to school, and worshipping in the communities in which they settled. They have become an integral part of the working class of this country.

That is why the entire working class will suffer a serious setback if the immigrant worker is attacked today as being “the problem,” the cause of all that is wrong in America – instead of atacking the real problem, which is the government and the ruling class whose interests it serves.

Ruling class seeks to divide the working class

The capitalist class dares not close its border with Mexico. The “illegal status” of the immigrant worker reaps many benefits for the capitalists at home and abroad. Abroad, the “illegal” migration of particularly Mexican workers serves as a safety valve to release social and economic pressures that otherwise would explode into revolution. And a revolution in Mexico would also greatly influence the workers of all Latin America – indeed, in the United States itself – and it would threaten U.S. interests worldwide. It is for this reason that some capitalists – and some politicians – are calling for “amnesty” for certain undocumented workers and a “guest-worker” status for others.

The capitalist class as a whole is united in its overall strategy to retain its class hegemony. The differences that have emerged in the political proposals all contribute to rallying different sections of the working class in opposition to the immigrants rights movement. By attempting to pit the rest of the U.S. working class against immigrants, capitalists seek to prevent the formation of a class conscious of itself as a working class, with class interests across borders, and with interests fundamentally opposed to those of capital. The ruling class has used the debate around HR-4437 to try to convince U.S. born workers that immigrants were to blame for their declining standard of living, despite the fact that the dismantling of social programs and various other policies have accelerated the race to the bottom for all workers.

Under the steadily worsening conditions faced by all workers, the ruling class must at all costs take steps to prevent them from uniting and acting in their own interests. Thus, the capitalists are using the fears they have cultivated to win a section of workers over to support increased repressive measures, such as revamping the enforcement apparatus and strengthening new repressive government institutions like Homeland Security.

Connected to these efforts, we are witnessing instances where cities and states are taking the law into their own hands by passing their own versions of the House and Senate’s anti-immigrant legislation. For example, on July 13 the City Council of  Hazleton, Pennsylvania approved a law to make the town the most hostile place in the U.S. for undocumented workers to live and work. In a 4-to-1 vote, the City Council passed what they are calling the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. This ordinance would deny licenses to businesses that employ undocumented workers, fine landlords $1,000 for each undocumented immigrant renting their properties and require Hazleton to be an English-only city. Some states are passing similar types of legislation. On July 10 Colorado state lawmakers approved legislation to discourage undocumented immigrants from passing through and/or settling in the state, which includes requiring adults to show valid identification to apply for nonemergency government benefits. Already some 6,000 National Guard troops are being deployed to the U.S. Mexico border and the size of the Border Patrol is being doubled from 3,000 to 6,000 agents. And across the country, agents of Homeland Security are banging on doors and hauling off undocumented in the early hours of the morning, stopping school buses and taking off children on their way to school, and raiding workplaces and communities.

Though these measures appear to be against a section of the population, the truth is that the whole of the working class is the target.

However, sometimes the actions of the ruling class bring about the opposite to the effect desired. HR-4437 makes felons of those who are here “illegally,” but it also criminalizes anyone who extends them even the slightest assistance. As such, the impact has extended beyond  the undocumented and has entangled all sectors of society – legal residents and citizens, church congregations, families, teachers, health-care workers, labor unions, human- and civil-rights defenders. As well, HR-4437 has made immigration more than just a Latino issue, bringing out other ethnic groups, such as the Chinese in New York, the Polish and Irish in Chicago, the Ethiopians and other Africans in D.C., etc.

Civil liberties and human rights cannot be denied to a sector of society without this condition ultimately extending to the rest of the population and in turn giving rise to increased discontent, agitation, and polarization. We have only to look to U.S. history for this lesson. In this country, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated the return of runaway slaves from the North to their slave owners in the South. Persons aiding and abetting runaways were arrested and fined. Free blacks were seized and carried away into bondage by unscrupulous bounty hunters. This law sparked civil disobedience and a series of actions and reactions that eventually led to the Civil War.

Conclusion

The spontaneous movement is making a historic turn—going from the defensive to the offensive. The immigration protests have been part of a continuum of the education of the workers in this country. The Iraq war is teaching them that their government cares little about the U.S. troops or the Iraqi people as long as its interests are secured. With Hurricane Katrina, they learned that the government does not care for the poor of this country. The social destruction that is accompanying the shut down of industry in the Rust Belt is teaching the same to people in the Midwest.

The struggle of the new immigrant for survival ties them to the rest of the working class who are also fighting for their livlihood. The motion around the immigrant issue is the social response of members of the new class of workers whose labor power is needed less and less by capital. With the understanding that the immigration protests were a response of the U.S. working class, revolutionaries must play their role in pointing the way forward. The velocity of reactionary forces is demanding that revolutionaries step up their efforts to strategize and plan out the next step forward for this fledgling movement. The rallying cry of the U.S. worker has become, now more than ever before, “An injury to one is an injury to all” – which in practical terms can only mean “Legalization to all, regardless of how long they have been in the U.S.” This will be the litmus test that all legislation, proposals, and positions will be tested against.

 

August.2006.Vol16.Ed5
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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