Without question, the March 21 immigrant rights march on Washington, D.C., represented a new upsurge in the movement.
 March on Washington, March 21, 2010 |
The estimates of the crowd ranged from 200,000 to half a million. The march the following Saturday in Los Angeles was estimated at 50,000 to 75,000.
This new upsurge comes after four years of intensified government repression on the immigrant communities that rose up by the millions in 2006.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons that can be taken from these demonstrations is that the masses of immigrants want to mobilize. Those who boarded buses in scores of cities across the nation risked deportation, police harassment and possible violence from any number of white supremacist organizations.
None of those factors, however, deterred the men, women and children who came to Washington to demand their civil rights and full equality.
The past four years of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents acting as a political police force for the U.S. government has terrorized immigrants in towns big and small. But the fear that ICE’s fascist-like tactics are designed to create has not diminished our community’s desire to fight.
That reality could be seen in the young people who walked through the heartland of world imperialism wearing shirts that read “Undocumented—and not afraid.”
Despite this massive show of force, contradictions exist in the immigrant rights movement. The desires of the working-class immigrant communities, like all oppressed peoples, for full democratic and civil rights are in conflict with the liberal and social-democratic political forces who are trying to steer the movement into a bourgeois political process that will, in effect, force immigrants to accept second-class status.
These contradictions are not new. The differences in the popular demands that defined the mobilizations of millions in 2006, and the political program of the 2010 march on Washington are important to analyze because they define the various class interests in the struggle.
The liberal perspective and the ‘promises’ of Obama
If one follows the narrative of the liberal and social-democratic forces that make up the mainstream immigrant rights groups and trade union leaderships—main organizers of the March 21 “March for America” in Washington—the road to so-called comprehensive immigration reform begins by “holding Obama to his promises.”
The purpose of this formulation is to place within the consciousness of millions of immigrant workers in the United States an equal sign between their desire for full democratic rights and the program of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, the Democratic Party and bourgeois liberalism in general.
The misleading nature of this formulation, expressed through a seemingly unlimited supply of vague slogans and talking points, hides the class character of the Democratic Party’s “middle of the road” approach towards immigration reform. Far from expressing the aspirations for equality among the immigrant working class, the legislative proposals being recycled under the current administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress is oriented towards the needs of the capitalist class.
Obama’s program in his presidential campaign, published as a pamphlet entitled “Blueprint for Change,” spelled out this reality. It expressed his full commitment to proposals that have always been contentious points in the immigrant rights movement, such as the further militarization of the border and an increase in workplace “enforcement.”
It also called for the further criminalization of “illegal” workers by expanding the use of flawed government systems like E-Verify, whose end result is to make it harder for immigrants to find the jobs needed to feed their families.
In the one year that Obama has been in office, the lofty calls for policy changes within ICE much touted by the more moderate immigrant rights groups as “progress,” has translated to nothing more than a regime more efficient in deporting immigrants than the Bush administration.
Even the granting of Temporary Protective Status to the Haitian community—won only as a result of the popular outcry after the devastating earthquake in their home nation—has proved only to be a cynical half-measure.
It was only revealed last week through a New York Times article that 30 Haitian earthquake survivors who were evacuated by U.S. military aircraft to the United States were detained for months without any access to psychological treatment simply for not having visas. A recent Washington Post article also revealed that ICE has been functioning under a quota system for deportations that officials in the agency were seeking to increase for 2010.
Therefore, it was not outside of the promises made in Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign that the administration endorsed the framework for immigration reform laid out by Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham only days before the March 21 demonstration.
The four basic pillars of the framework explained by Schumer and Graham in a March 19 Washington Post OpEd are: “requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.”
Their article reinforces the ruling class’s view of immigrants as criminals by stating that the undocumented “would be required to admit they broke the law and pay their debt to society by performing community service and paying fines and back taxes.”
This is a sick distortion of reality that places the blame for capitalism’s ills on the backs of the most oppressed and exploited workers. Not only is there no debt owed to society from immigrant communities in the United States, numerous studies have documented the fact that immigrant workers contribute far more in taxes than the services they receive from government programs.
For example, the millions of undocumented workers who are forced to work under a false Social Security number subsidize the Social Security system to the tune of billions of dollars a year, because they have no opportunity to ever collect those funds back in the form of Medicaid, Medicare or retirement benefits. They are also denied unemployment benefits in the event of a layoff, even though they pay those taxes while working.
The framework also lays out an onerous path towards legalization: “These people would be required to pass background checks and be proficient in English before going to the back of the line of prospective immigrants to earn the opportunity to work toward lawful permanent residence.”
Further concessions to the more conservative elements in Congress are inevitable in the absence of any major social upheaval from the immigrant rights movement and working class in general.
That is why it is important to understand the political implications of major immigrant rights groups, such as Reform Immigration for America and the leadership of the Service Employees International Union, coming out in full force behind the Graham/Schumer framework as well.
Andy Stern: ‘we want to be a player’
In March of 2006, speaking at a meeting of the American Bar Association, SEIU President Andy Stern spoke of the importance of dealing with proposals that are ”on-the-table” when it comes to immigration instead of backing a position that is not, in his view, politically realistic.
Speaking about one of several anti-worker legislative proposals that were debated that year, he told the crowd, “We support McCain-Kennedy because we want to be a player.”
The sanctified notion of ”pragmatism” that pervades the liberal and social democratic forces in the immigrant rights struggle, and their desire to be ”players,” is what maintains their allegiance to the Democratic Party and their program.
A press release sent out only a few days before the March 21 immigrant rights march in Washington by Reform Immigration for America stated: “We share the President’s sentiment—that this framework is a good first step.”
President Obama, in a very calculated move, sent a pre-recorded video statement displayed on two large screens at the rally where he reiterated his support for the Graham/Schumer framework.
In this light, the March 21 demonstration served as a safety valve designed to pacify working-class immigrants who have become increasingly frustrated by a lack of substantial change since Obama took office. Its purpose was to divert these frustrations into an acceptable political process, restricting any opportunity to directly challenge ruling-class power.
Reviving the spirit of May Day 2006
Contrast this scenario to the May 1, 2006, “Day without an Immigrant.” Millions of immigrant workers and their allies marked that day, International Workers Day, with strikes, walkouts, boycotts of U.S. products, demonstrations and vigils across the United States.
Immigrant workers—documented and undocumented—directly defied their employers, the government and police to demand amnesty. Some of the largest corporations—including the food-processing conglomerates—in the world were forced to shut down. The cost of the one-day boycott in Los Angeles alone was $300 million—a fifth of the city’s daily intake.
During this heroic upsurge, neither the AFL-CIO nor the Change to Win coalition utilized their immense mobilizing capacity on a national scale. Several union leaders were in fact vehemently opposed to the May Day actions, and said so publicly.
The U.S. ruling class viewed this new movement very seriously.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation wrote in 2006: “What [the ruling class] fears the most is that immigrant workers—indeed, all workers—will feel the political strength that is held in their labor power. The ruling class fears that their political strength will be measured not at the ballot box for one or another ruling class politician, but in their ability to effect political change through their organization and position as the producers of society’s wealth. It fears that the immigration rights movement will develop a sense of its revolutionary potential.” (Socialism and Liberation, June 2006)
The central demand that summarized the interests of the millions who filled the streets in cities across the country was for amnesty—full democratic rights for immigrant workers. It was the largest single working-class action in U.S. history, which arose in response to the draconian “Sensenbrenner” congressional proposal that would have converted the undocumented into felons for simply wanting to work and live in the United States.
Without the protection of legal rights and willing to risk their jobs, millions demonstrated great courage and consciousness by demanding their rights as workers. But soon after the March, April and May Day protests of 2006, raids and deportations were greatly stepped up by the Bush administration.
The Democrats for their part began to prepare for the 2008 presidential and congressional elections by putting aside any consideration for the immigrant community. Immigrants became invisible, because of the capitalist politicians’ “pragmatic” approach to politics, and because the undocumented and permanent residents are not allowed to vote.
The real sentiment of the liberals who fought for the newly signed health care law, towards immigrants, is clear: the law specifically prohibits the estimated 12 million undocumented workers and their families from even purchasing health insurance under the plan.
The Graham/Schumer framework would not only establish into law the political apartheid imposed on undocumented workers today, but it fails to recognize that imperialism will continue to create entire populations of future immigrants in other nations because of imperialist plundering and super-exploitation.
Millions of those workers will continue to come here to work, crossing the same deserts that have taken the lives of thousands. The only difference will be that now they will have to face a more militarized border.
The struggle to establish full democratic rights for all workers, regardless of immigration status, is one that was shown to be more than realistic by the heroic demonstrations of 2006. Those who preach pragmatism from their positions of privilege should remember the Black Civil Rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were not passed in a Congress whose character was less racist than the Congress of 1963. There was no lobbying effort that changed the consciousness of the racists who held the seats in the Senate and the House.
It was the mass mobilizations and persistent determination of the African American community that demanded nothing less than full civil rights—denied to them for almost a hundred years after the Civil War—that pushed the ruling class to accept this legislation, or face massive social unrest.
It is not just immigrants who must continue to fight for full legalization. It is essential that all workers understand that as long as any sector of the working class is treated as second-class, there can be no hope of advancement for all workers. An injury to one is an injury to all.
