Immigration

["Workers World, Chicago Bureau" <wwchi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Actually, I took Tony's post not as a personal or sectarian attack, but as
an expression of frustration that more isn't being done on the issue.  And
his frustration is legitimate.  In our case I don't believe it's because our
members haven't been "educated" on the issue - Tony, if there is somebody
you're thinking of, let me know so we can tell him/her to "get with the
program" - but I readily concede that we would like to be doing much more
than we are.  Maybe we should be down leafleting at the Immigration and
Naturalization Service office every day.  I've been down there and you meet
a good class of people.

Lou Paulsen
member, WWP, Chicago

Here are excerpts from a leaflet we had at an immigrant rights
demonstration:

Why we defend the rights of immigrants

The rights of immigrants are under attack ... Bilingual education is under
attack everywhere.  Some measures in Congress would deny legal assistance to
immigrants trying to win their legal rights.  Some measures would deny
benefits even to immigrants with legal work permits.

This takes place in a country where the most of the true Native Peoples are
poor and oppressed, most of their land robbed at gunpoint long ago, and the
remainder constantly in danger of being plundered by big corporations!
Every one of the politicians who pushes this line, and most of the people
living in the U.S. today, are immigrants or descended from immigrants!

Who are immigrants?

Immigrants are primarily working people, people with the same interests as
working people born in the U.S.  Whether or not they have the "proper"
documents, they create wealth, they pay taxes, and they contribute to the
economy alongside those of us who were born here.  Some people accuse them
of taking more than their share of social benefits.  This is a lie!  Studies
have repeatedly shown that they get less in benefits than they pay in
taxes - pretty much like the rest of us.

Who are the undocumented?

Some immigrants do not have the legal papers to be in the U.S.  But these
immigration laws are completely unjust.  They are against the interests of
the working people.

The big businesses are all for free trade and free travel for themselves.
They go around the world putting up factories and taking them down, moving
billions of dollars of cash and commodities from one country to another.
They don't want any limits on their trade; they want to go anywhere in the
world to buy at the lowest price and sell at the highest price.  This is
what NAFTA was about - complete freedom of trade for big business, with no
respect for the needs of Mexico.  Well, we are for free trade for ourselves,
for the working people who have nothing at all to sell but their work! If a
capitalist can cross the border into another country to look for cheap
labor, the worker from that country should be able to cross the border the
other way to look for higher wages!

What do immigration laws do?

The U.S. government spends millions of dollars a year to hunt down our
fellow workers and deport them.  But if they stay in their home countries,
they might end up working for U.S. companies anyway, in overseas plants -
only, for a rock-bottom wage of a few dollars a day.  Or they might produce
crops or mining raw materials for the multinationals, for even less money.
The function of immigration laws is to confine workers in other countries so
that U.S. and other multinational corporations can pay them slave-labor
wages. ...

Are there enough jobs to go around?

Some people think that there is only a limited number of jobs to go around,
and that we have to keep people out of the U.S. to keep our own jobs for
ourselves.  This is not true.  Getting a job isn't like getting some kind of
free benefit.  We don't CONSUME wealth when we work, we PRODUCE wealth.  We
produce more than we get back in our pay envelopes.  There is no reason why
anyone who wants to work should be unemployed.  In fact we should ALL have
the right to a job!  If we all had jobs, more could be produced and our
lives would be better.  The only problem is that it doesn't always maximize
some businessman's rate of profit to hire us, but why should that be the
primary concern??  Anyway, this is a global economy.  If immigrants are kept
outside the U.S., the first thing we know our jobs will be sent outside the
U.S. where the wages are lower.  In fact this is happening today!  Our only
true protection will be when all workers everywhere have the freedom to
organize for a decent wage.

Is there an "immigration crisis"?

Some politicians say there is an "immigration crisis" because people are
coming here and using too many social services.  This is another lie!  It's
true that social services are starved for funds, but not because they serve
too many people.  It's because their funds are being looted, because the
wealthiest class, the 1 per cent of the people who own 40 per cent of the
country, don't want to let a single dollar back out of their hands, and
because the political "leaders" of both parties are absolutely under their
control.  We don't have "too many immigrants", we have too little power!

And yet the media and the politicians harp on the "immigration crisis"
incessantly, often descending to the vilest Nazi-type racist scare tactics.
We will fight to the death any such racist tactics of division.  We will
fight any attempt to divide us by language.  The idea of making English the
"national language" of the U.S. is utterly worthless and reactionary.  Its
only purpose is to lay the groundwork for later on denying people services,
eliminating bilingual education, and denying them the vote or other civil
rights based on their language.  ...