After the defeat of the most recent immigration reform bill in the Senate, PSLweb.org’s Carlos Alvarez interviewed Juan José Gutiérrez, the director of the pro-immigrant organization Latino Movement USA, about the state of the immigrant rights movement today.
What has the immigrant rights movement accomplished in the past 18 months?
The immigrant rights movement has come a long way from being fragmented and relatively scattered. It has become massive, at times, and its actions have become more of a factor on the national political scene.
When Sensenbrenner (H.R. 4437) was passed in December 2005, the immigrant rights movement was in a passive
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Since that time, there have been massive mobilizations across the country and a general strike by undocumented workers on May 1, 2006. These actions were directly responsible for the death of H.R. 4437 and the Senate’s passage of a package of immigration reforms (in May 2006) that went further than the most recent bill that was not passed by the Senate this June.
The same impetus that was generated by last year’s mass actions as well as this year’s actions eventually forced the Senate to revisit the issue. Although it didn’t get approved, it was still very much on the front burner of national political discourse.
The actions of the immigrants and their allies were very positive politically for the entire country. Not only did they raise some of the most fundamental political contradictions of the U.S. capitalist system in its dealings with working people, especially undocumented workers, but also the actions forced the U.S. working class to recalibrate its relationship with an important segment of the working class.
What happened to the most recent immigration bill?
The bill was taken off the table in the Senate in late June. It was unfortunate because having a bill under debate allowed the movement to intervene forcefully in the discussion and push for full legalization. Although we did not support that particular package of reforms put forward by the Senate, only the movement can force the powers that be to adopt comprehensive immigration reform—the granting of basic, democratic rights to undocumented immigrants.
The main forces behind killing the debate were the extreme right wing of the Republican Party and right wing talk radio disc jockeys. Across the mass media outlets, there are a number of individuals, like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan, who were also influential in defeating the Senate package of immigration reform.
Within the ranks of the progressive, pro-immigrant community, some organizations and individuals adopted a similar stance of opposing the legislation because of the many defects in the bill.
What is life like for undocumented workers in the United States?
The conditions of the immigrant undocumented worker are dire. They don’t have a right to obtain a driver’s license or state ID in the majority of states. They cannot prove residency, which then means they cannot travel by planes or trains.
They cannot obtain Social Security numbers. They have to rely on false numbers to work. This causes a problem for retirement and also for keeping jobs. If a worker provides a non-matching Social Security number, the Social Security office notifies the employer. It often happens that the employee then has to look for a job elsewhere.
Undocumented immigrants face the constant fear of being detected by law enforcement and being deported. This
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The situation of such workers will only get worse without the passage of meaningful immigration reform. The struggle to persuade Congress that it needs to take affirmative action on this issue can be expected to intensify, perhaps not immediately but over time.
What should be the perspective of the immigrant rights movement now?
We have called for a mass mobilization on October 12 in Los Angeles to demand full legalization and an end to the raids on the undocumented. It is being initiated by the April 7 Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition, which includes Latino Movement USA, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, the ANSWER Coalition and many other organizations.
The movement can now reflect on and analyze what’s happened over the last 18 months. We can discuss strategies and tactics. Strategy encompasses a lot of actions that are part of the political struggle. But the question is—what are the most important ones that we need to anchor ourselves to? And how do we persuade the rest of the movement to join us?
It will take a little while until this is laid out. Nobody can argue the need to group together the most advanced elements within the immigrant rights movement and begin forming a team of capable activists and organizers that can carry the movement forward to the next stage of organization.
Should the immigrant rights struggle be linked with other social justice issues?
Yes, without a doubt. One of the most important political contributions of the immigrant rights movement is that this movement has remained very open and inviting to other social rights movements, mainly the anti-war movement.
We have to figure out ways to extend as much solidarity to one another as possible and to collaborate. The goal is that, at some point in the future, we won’t have to separate the movements, but instead bring them all together in a powerful convergence of interests that will move forward in the same direction.
Why should all workers fight for legalization of the undocumented?
The immigrant rights movement is nothing more than another expression of the U.S. working class in its struggle for liberation. As the slogan says, “an injury to one is an injury to all.” We have an obligation to support all sectors of the working class.
In addition, unless the most abused and exploited segment of the working class is brought along and placed on the same level playing field as the rest of the working class, it is going to be difficult to move forward as a class.
One reason there has been significant sympathy in the streets among non-immigrant sectors of in the United States toward the undocumented is because class consciousness is emerging to some degree.
