This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
They're supported by other anti-immigrant hate groups and organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR, not to be confused with the noted media watch group using the same acronym standing for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting). The racist FAIR is lobbying Congress for repressive immigration legislation that will deny Latinos and others coming here basic civil and human rights by stepping up harsh border security, increasing Gestapo-like crackdowns against those already here, and giving predatory corporations the right to exploit the ones allowed in or manage to come anyway. The fate of millions of honest, hard-working immigrant families depends on exposing and stopping the kind of work these groups do and what they stand for.
In spite of them and all the other hazards they face, and word gets back about them, the courageous poor keep coming for a better life to support their families usually left behind desperate for whatever aid their loved ones can send back. No amount of manpower, security and technology in place can stop them. Those caught and sent back try again, eventually circumventing the obstacles against them on a near-2000 mile long border, all of which can't be patrolled. But that takes them into the harshest stretches of desert many each year never leave. And still they come, risking everything, tens of thousands each year, their numbers growing as NAFTA and neoliberal market-imposed rules leave them no choice - head north or perish.
Congressional Reform or Deform in 2007
Things could change if trade was fair, not unfair, under made-in-Washington one-way "free trade" rules legalizing unfairness, especially in areas like agriculture so crucial to millions of small farmers in developing countries like Mexico forced off the land unable to compete against heavily subsidized US agribusiness. But carrots aren't on the legislative docket in Congress, only assorted sticks in the stalled compromise immigration bill providing no relief the way things are progressing so far in both Houses.
So-called "immigration reform" stalled last year after the House passed the repressive HR 4437 Sensenbrenner bill, The Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Act of 2005, in December, 2005. It was a law only racists and hatemongers could love. It galled, or embarrassed, enough senators to clean it up some and pass S 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act or Hagel-Martinez bill last May. It was still bad enough to create a permanent underclass of low-paid workers, allow employers the right to exploit them, place restraints on wages and benefits, and create a nightmarish multi-tiered bureaucratic structure for temporary partial legalization leaving out of the mix millions of undocumented workers already here and delaying citizenship for those eligible for almost two decades.
Workers, most unions and others for immigrant rights oppose this bill, but shamefully it's supported by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE HERE representing hotel, food service, apparel, textile and gaming industries with both unions sacrificing their members' rights for whatever the leadership gets from collaborating with employers and Washington.
Proposed Immigration Legislation Includes A New Bracero Program
New immigration legislation proposed in Congress leaves in it most of the harsh measures in S 2611 including a new temporary or guest worker plan with shades of the infamous Bracero Program in force from 1942 - 1964. It created a system of indentured servitude ongoing to this day, even after its official end, with an army of serfs with no rights giving employers the legal right to exploit over 4.6 million Mexican migrant farm workers. They were denied basic rights; got only temporary, low-wage jobs; often were cheated out of pay earned; held in virtual captivity by employers seizing their documents; denied the right to change jobs freely; forced to live in squalid conditions; denied medical care or benefits for injuries received; forced to endure severe harassment and oppression from employers knowing they could ship braceros home whenever they complained too much about what they had plenty to complain about. It happened in 1954 when a recession triggered a political backlash against Mexican communities resulting in the deportation or flight of over one million Mexican migrant workers and their families under Operation Wetback including children born here as US citizens.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
