Immigrant rights are doubly threatened
Advocacy groups call for May 1 action
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the
National Coalition for Dignity and Amnesty for Immigrants warn about
twin threats to immigrant rights
[Received through the Mexico Solidarity Network.]
[3-30-02]
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision removing the
labor rights of undocumented immigrant workers which it had previously
upheld, the National Coalition for Dignity and Amnesty for Immigrants
has called a May 1 nationwide mobilization for immigrant worker justice.
Delegations from 23 states will converge on Washington, D.C. to
overwhelm Congress with the FREEDOM Act legislative proposal for
immigrant legalization.
Simultaneously, hundreds of activists across the
country will visit their local Congressional offices. Some cities are
organizing speak-outs, marches, and other public actions. For more
information, check the web site, www.floc.com.
President Bush has just returned from a trip to Mexico
and Central America where he discussed immigration policy. Immigrants
are scared of the programs he will push on Capitol Hill after his six-
month blitzkrieg of an anti-labor, pro-war agenda.
Bush seems to favor a "bracero" worker visa
program much like the H2A program used by exploitative agribusinesses.
Under this program, immigrant workers are assigned a boss by the federal
government. There are many limitations: (1) they cannot change jobs
legally, (2) they do not have the right to vote or a means to gain
citizenship; (3) they do not have the right to form unions, and (4) they
can be deported and prevented from returning to this country at the will
of their employer.
What's scary is the number of good-hearted people who
have been sold on this idea. Without a mass movement of opposition,
Congress will go for it. People see it as some "compromise"
short of "blanket amnesty." "Isn't it better than not
having papers at all?" they ask. NO, IT'S MUCH WORSE! This program
codifies into law the intimidation and absolute power employers have
over immigrant workers. Making undocumented immigrants officially
second-class citizens eliminates for big business their embarrassing
hypocrisy of heavily recruiting black-market, exploitable labor and
using the criminalization of this same labor force to beat it into
submission. If the spin-doctors have their way, people in this country
will just get used to having once again a legally-mandated servant
class.
A worker visa program in which desperate people come
here to work under conditions that they have no democratic right to
challenge, threatens all of us as organized workers, social justice
advocates, and immigrants! That is why we must send a strong message to
legislators.
The National Coalition's FREEDOM Act is not
"blanket amnesty." It provides for: (1) three-year temporary
residency for every gainfully employed, law-abiding undocumented
immigrant with a process by which they could earn permanent residency,
and (2) a mechanism to legalize future migration flows and demilitarize
the border so people who come here to work could visit their families
back in home countries regularly enough not to have to smuggle them here
under great danger. A copy of this proposal is available for your
perusal on www.floc.com.
The battle for immigrant rights has never been at a
more critical moment. The Supreme Court decided that employers have
impunity to fire undocumented workers with no questions asked for union
activity or any other reason. This decision is a devastating blow to all
undocumented workers' ability to organize for their rights. It makes
undocumented workers even more attractive and vulnerable to employers,
who already intentionally recruit them for their exploitability.
We need supporters to help us make some noise and
change the course of a very grave turn of events for immigrants in this
country May 1, 2002!
