by David Bacon
Since 2001 the Bush administration has deported more than a million people. It’s no wonder Latinos, Asians and other communities with large immigrant populations voted for Barack Obama by huge margins.
The election, taking place as millions of people were losing their jobs and homes, had its hysteria-mongers trying to scapegoat immigrants for this crisis. But most voters did not drink the Kool-Aid. In fact, every poll shows that a big majority rejected raids and want basic rights and fair treatment for everyone, immigrants included.
People want and expect a change ending the Bush administration’s failed program of raids, jail time and deportations. So does the political coalition that put Obama into office–African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, women and union families–expect change.
From the beginning, the administration’s enforcement program has been cynically designed to pressure Congress into re-establishing discredited guest worker schemes. The Southern Poverty Law Center called the program “close to slavery.”
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has cynically stated that the raids were intended to “closing the back door and opening the front door.” No one whose eyes are open to the terrible human suffering caused by them will be very sorry to see Chertoff go. So far, Barack Obama’s choice of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is not encouraging.
The Tucson “Operation Streamline” court convenes in her home state every day. The situation for immigrants in Arizona is worse than almost anywhere else. Napolitano
herself has publicly supported most of the worst ideas of the Bush administration.
The economic crisis does not have to pit working people against each other, nor lead to demonize immigrants further. In fact, there is common ground between immigrants, communities of color, unions, churches, civil rights organizations and working families. Legalization and immigrant rights can be tied to guaranteeing jobs for anyone who wants to work, and unions to raise wages and win better conditions for everyone in the workplace.
The AFL-CIO’s campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act supports the surest means of ending the low-wage, second-class status of immigrant workers organizing unions. Repealing unfair trade agreements and ending structural adjustment policies would raise the standard of living in places like Oaxaca or El Salvador and reduce the pressure for migration. In the United States, jobs become more secure in working class communities.
But stopping the raids is the first step in a process. At the same time it can help the administration begin to address the larger issues of immigration reform, jobs and workplace rights. Here are steps the new administration can take right away:
- Stop ICE from seeking serious federal criminal charges when a worker lacks papers or has a bad Social Security numbers.* Stop raiding workplaces.
- Halt community sweeps, checkpoints and roadblocks where agents use warrants for one or two people to detain and deport dozens.
- Double the paltry 742 federal inspectors responsible for all U.S. wage and hour violations.
- Allow all workers to apply for a Social Security number and pay legally into a system.
- Re-establish worker protections, ended under Bush, connected with existing guest worker programs.
- Restore human rights in border communities, stop construction of the U.S. and Mexico border wall, and disband the Operation Streamline federal court.
[This commentary condenses a 1,600-word analysis labor writer David Bacon prepared for the New America Media, a nationwide association of more than 700 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Hispanic Link is a member of NAM. Bacon is the author of “Communities without Borders,” (ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2006.)] ©2008
