A Grassroots Vision for U.S. Immigration Policy-and Beyond
Wilson, Jane Guskin and David
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: u.s. policy A Grassroots Vision for U.S. Immigration Policy—and Beyond a member of Healing our borders, a group with members from both sides of the...
...When communities stand up to defend their rights and their resources, they face repression, and we must respond...
...You don’t have to consider yourself an activist or an organizer, and you don’t need experience, as long as you’re willing to learn...
...deadline for submitting proposals: february 1, 2009 www.immigrantsolidarity.org/2009Conference For more information and to get involved: www.immigrantsolidarity.org new York: (212) 330-8172 los angeles: (213) 403-0131 washington, d.C.: (202) 595-8990 to join immigrant solidarity network e-mail lists, visit www.immigrantsolidarity.org/list.htm...
...If we take into account the increasingly interconnected global economy, we might come up with a progressive U.S...
...We should stop international financial institutions from imposing further poverty and suffering on the Global South...
...We can’t separate immigration policy from domestic and international policy, or isolate immigrant demands from citizen demands...
...citizens do when they visit most other countries—and don’t turn Immigrants and citizens share the same desires: Most of us want a good quality of life, access to health care, fairness for all, and a sustainable environment for the next generation...
...support immigrant workers’ rights...
...When we are able to build real solidarity and unity among our struggles, we’ll start seeing results...
...Under most guest-worker proposals, employers get to decide who comes here, and the workers are tightly controlled and can’t defend their rights...
...This may seem more like a fantasy than a policy proposal...
...policy What both of these proposals lack is attention to the worldwide political and economic factors that impel people to migrate...
...But as activists, advocates, and members of affected communities, it’s our job to mobilize around what we actually believe in...
...If you can’t find one that suits you, get together with friends, neighbors, or co-workers and start something new...
...blogspot.com...
...If someone shows up who is charged with a crime, either here or abroad, we can make use of existing mechanisms for criminal prosecution or extradition...
...Hundreds more are arrested on the street by local police for the crime of “living while Latino” and often handed over to the immigration agency for deportation...
...we should let them enjoy their full rights, with no limiting conditions and no punishment...
...the national immigrant solidarity network (nisn), formed in 2003, is a coalition of immigrant rights, labor, human rights, religious, and student activist organizations from across the country...
...border, carries a cross with the name of an undocumented immigrant who died in the desert near Douglas, arizona...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: u.s...
...communities with more resources need to expand their solidarity—locally, nationally, and globally...
...government’s military, political, and economic intervention in world affairs...
...There are variations on this scheme that claim to be more compassionate, with less stringent punishments for undocumented immigrants or limited labor protections for guest workers...
...This includes the construction of new walls and fences along the U.S.-Mexican border, which pushes more migrants to cross— and die—in remote desert and mountain areas...
...There are thousands of grassroots groups doing organizing work...
...We can start with dialogue at the grassroots level, across and within communities, listening and talking to each other...
...This usually requires undocumented immigrants to return home, pay heavy fines, wait in line, and suffer further indignities and delays...
...The idea of basing the “future flow” of immigrants and foreign workers into this country on perceived “labor needs” creates another problem...
...The United States should allow everyone who is living here and wants to stay a chance to achieve citizenship...
...People should be able to go back and forth as desired between the United States and their home country without penalty...
...That can lead us to a broad, clear vision of what we really want for everyone...
...3. A guest-worker plan for temporary foreign laborers...
...policy 1. A limited legalization plan with a punishment component...
...from legislative letter-writing campaigns to speaker bureaus and educational materials, we organize critical immigrant-worker campaigns that are moving toward justice for all immigrants...
...It also includes stepped-up workplace raids, which claim to target employers who hire undocumented immigrants, but which instead end up hurting the workers and pushing down wages...
...We should start a dialogue about ways to redistribute wealth and compensate people and communities whose resources were stolen over the past centuries...
...Those who are marginalized and impoverished are not to blame for the theft, over centuries, of their natural resources and labor...
...Jane Guskin and David Wilson are the authors of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers (Monthly Review Press, 2007...
...We need to learn the history of struggle: what has worked in the past, what hasn’t, and how we ended up in this current global crisis...
...immigration policy that looks something like this: 1. Put an end to deportation and detention...
...we work with leading immigrant rights, student, and labor groups in solidarity with their campaigns, and organize community immigrant rights education campaigns...
...Workers are exploited and abused on the job, stripped of their rights to organize, then punished with federal prison sentences for complying with their employers’ demands for fake IDs...
...they are not to blame for the fierce repression that crushes them whenever they dare to resist...
...People who want to stay and work should be provided with social security numbers and information about their labor rights...
...2. Let visitors fill out an entry form at the airport or border—the way U.S...
...Any policy addressing the right to migrate needs to take into account “the right not to migrate”—already a popular slogan among indigenous people from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, as documented by labor journalist David Bacon...
...Immigrants and citizens share the same desires: Most of us want a good quality of life, access to health care, fairness for all, and a sustainable environment for the next generation...
...Many immigrants are de facto citizens already...
...4th National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference the conference will be our strategy planning meeting for grassroots immigrant activists looking to 2009 and beyond...
...As of this writing, the AFL-CIO hasn’t adopted this proposal...
...3. We should end the U.S...
...If we are millions, if we are organized, if we demand everything, we’ll get something closer to what we want...
...If we unite around a common vision, those in power will try to placate us with crumbs...
...Young people who don’t remember the country where they were born are denied any options to legalize their status and are stuck without a future—as high school graduates unable to attend college, or as college graduates forced into low-wage, off-the-books labor...
...Do employers really need a larger pool of workers, or do they just want workers who are more vulnerable and easier to control...
...We must also organize...
...The plan includes (1) swift, practical, inclusive legalization, (2) immigration enforcement, but only if accompanied by real mechanisms to enforce protective labor and employment laws, (3) the establishment of an independent body to determine labor needs, along with guarantees that all workers who come to the United States get full rights and an option to become permanent residents, (4) extension of the social safety net to all workers, (5) the protection of civil liberties and civil rights for all, and (6) the clearing up of the application backlog for legal immigration with a priority on family unity...
...Children are separated from their parents or jailed in special “family” detention centers...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: u.s...
...People are detained, deported, faced with impossible choices, and then blamed for it all...
...A chorus of self-appointed policy makers— including mainstream “advocacy” groups, elected officials, and business associations— tells us the solution is “comprehensive immigration reform,” which mostly ends up looking like this: jACK KurTz / THe imAge wOrKS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 report: u.s...
...We need to take concrete action to support immigrants who are organizing here and also people who are rising up around the world, demanding the right to a better future...
...Every week hundreds of immigrants are arrested in raids on their homes and workplaces...
...we want to send a clear message to the Congress and our new president: stop immigrant raids...
...We should halt the arms trade...
...To get there from here we must begin to retrieve historical memory, to learn the history of peoples and communities, our own and others...
...2. Stricter enforcement of existing rules...
...We can’t let ourselves be isolated and weakened by petty differences...
...As we face a growing recession, the scapegoating of immigrants is likely to increase, and we can’t count on new faces in Washington to bring us a fair immigration ting up film screenings, discussions, and study circles, by creating our own media, using the Internet, and just talking to each other...
...energized and open to new ideas...
...april 10-12, 2009 uiC College of medicine, Chicago registration now open...
...Immigration Policy—and Beyond a member of Healing our borders, a group with members from both sides of the Mexico-u.S...
...Avendaño says it’s still developing...
...The governments and corporations that hold power all over the globe are pushing people policy...
...They edit the Weekly News Update on the Americas (weeklynewsupdate...
...For one thing, immigration enforcement can’t co-exist with effective enforcement of labor laws, because raids targeting immigrant workers create widespread fear that make it nearly impossible for those workers to report abuses or otherwise defend their rights...
...student and low-income options available...
...support immigrant rights...
...Now is the time to act...
...Some sectors, particularly the labor unions, oppose guest-worker programs and are working to come up with an alternative plan...
...We can share these resources by set anyone away...
...42 by jane Guskin and David Wilson S ince the september 11 terrorist attacks, the situation for immigrants in the United States has turned increasingly insecure...
...There are thousands of great resources out there—books, films, oral histories—to help us learn...
...We should repeal NAFTA, CAFTA, and all other asymmetrical trade agreements...
...If they complain, they are sent home...
...Ana Avendaño, an attorney with the AFL-CIO, last July laid out a framework for an immigration policy through a workers’ rights lens...
...policy A Grassroots Vision for U.S...
...While it’s an improvement over the usual model of comprehensive immigration reform, it has serious shortcomings...
...If we are divided, if we demand crumbs, we will get nothing...
...The status quo has shifted, and people are from their homes with one hand and punishing them for leaving with the other...
...National Immigrant Solidarity Network About the campaign: no immigrant Bashing...
...Disenfranchised communities need to build power...
Vol. 42 • January 2009 • No. 1
