Correspondence:
Some Thoughts on the Immigration Question: Big Contradictions and Potential for Major Upheaval
March 10, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
We received this correspondence from Travis Morales.
Recently, some of us in the movement for revolution had some informal discussion of what is up with the immigration question. This was sparked by both the renewed rancorous debate among the ranks of the ruling class over “comprehensive immigration reform,” a euphemism for how to greatly intensify the repression and oppression of immigrants, and a certain upsurge concentrated in the Southwest but reaching to other parts of the country of people blockading deportation buses and Migra courts. The following is some initial observations and thinking I have on the questions of immigration and the border, how these have developed over the last period, and their relationship to building a movement for revolution and being able to do the dog in Babylon when the time comes. This is by no means a comprehensive and exhaustive analysis but rather an attempt to begin to address these questions.
There is much to review from what we have written before, but I think a good place to start is these quotes from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian:
There is nothing sacred to us about the USA, as it is presently constituted, or about the borders of the U.S. as they are presently constituted. Quite the opposite.(BAsics 3:20)
It is hardly conceivable that there could be a revolution in the U.S. which didn’t at some point and in various ways significantly interpenetrate with and have mutual interaction and mutual influence with revolutionary struggles being waged by the people in neighboring countries—especially in Central America. (BAsics 3:21)
Since these quotes first came out some 30 years ago, what BA was pointing to has become even more true with the huge influx of people from Mexico and Central America that has profoundly changed the demographic landscape of the U.S. Along with this has been the deeper penetration of U.S. imperialism into these countries and the intertwining of their economies with the U.S. while the heart of these economies still continues to beat in the U.S. Over the last 30 years, the lives of the masses in Mexico and Central America have become even more of a living nightmare, forcing millions to go to El Norte. All of this can turn into its opposite and be a big strength and force for revolution on both sides of the southern border.
Think of this. At the time of the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)—the so-called “amnesty” law that was supposed to solve the problem of “illegal immigration” and bring this section of people out into the open where they could be controlled—an estimated 3.6 million undocumented immigrants lived in the U.S. Now the estimate is 11 to 12 million, with some saying up to 20 million. IRCA was a highly repressive law that required employers to confirm that their employees were U.S. citizens or if they were immigrants that they were authorized to work; made it illegal to hire undocumented immigrants; legalized undocumented immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt; candidates were required to prove that they were not guilty of crimes, that they were in the country before January 1, 1982, and that they possessed minimal knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language.
The two largest states in population, California and Texas, together having 19% of the total U.S. population (38 million and 26.5 million people respectively), are both majority non-white and majority oppressed nationalities. California is 39.7% white, 38.1% Latino, 6.6% Black, 13.6% Asian. Texas is 45.3% white, 37.6% Latino, 11.8% Black and 3.8% Asian. In 1970 California was 77% white compared to 39.7% now, a 50% drop! An estimated 7.3% of the California population and 6% of the Texas population are undocumented. I don’t have the figures but it is safe to say that a very large percentage of the Latino populations in these two states is composed of Mexican immigrants and the children of immigrants. One indication of where the demographics are going is that 50% of the children born in Texas are Chicanos (people of Mexican descent born in the U.S.). I cite these figures to give a taste of the huge demographic changes and problems confronting the ruling class. But this is not just in the Southwest or just Latinos.
Florida, Illinois and New York have big populations of immigrants and their descendants. For example, New York City, the largest city in the country with 8.3 million people, has Latinos making up 28% of this figure, while Asian Americans are 12% of the population. New York and California have large Asian immigrant populations that are growing very fast.
Looking to the future, California is the 10th largest economy in the world. Both Texas and California are leading food producers. And Texas is the center of the petrochemical industry. This along with the large concentration of immigrants and others from the oppressed has big implications in a very different situation of crisis and revolutionary possibilities.
Back in the late 1980s or early '90s, I heard José Ángel Gutiérrez, a prominent activist from the '60s/early '70s and one of the founders of, first, the Mexican-American Youth Organization (MAYO) and then later, el Partido de la Raza Unida (an electoral party), give a speech. He basically articulated that in Texas, Chicanos would out-reproduce the “gringos” and then be able to assume political power. While I definitely do not agree with this, there is something to this in the sense of the big contradiction these changing demographics pose for the ruling class as they forcefully re-assert white supremacy in the midst of the extreme necessity they face of defending and expanding their empire and keeping it together. Or as fascist former GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan lamented in a book he wrote a few years ago, “White America is an endangered species” and "Mexico is moving north.” In particular, the different reactionary responses to one part of these changes are being fought out at the top of the pyramid between different sections of the ruling class over how best to repress immigrants.
All of this is linked to the fact that the U.S. shares a 2,000-mile border with a Third World oppressed country of 120 million people. As Revolution has said in the past, this is a unique situation in the world: an advanced imperialist country sharing a border with an oppressed Third World country, one that they have brutally oppressed for the last 150 years. The U.S. domination, exploitation, and oppression of Mexico continues to make life unbearable for tens of millions, forcing millions from the countryside into the cities and millions to try and go to El Norte to survive. Millions have come here, not because they love America but because America has made it impossible for them to live in their home countries. This continues to be a dangerous contradiction for the ruling class. Over the last few decades so much of the more dynamic sectors of the U.S. economy have relied on super-exploitable immigrant labor while they see this section of people as volatile and politically dangerous. As former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg put it, “Although [illegal immigrants] broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or over-staying their visas and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported.” Mexico has been economically ravaged over the last two decades with an ongoing political crisis, repression, and disappearances, and tens of thousands killed in the drug wars, with many opponents of the government killed by death squads under the cover of the drug wars. Any evaluation from the U.S. point of view is that Mexico could explode in political upheaval at any time.
As we saw at the time of the Zapatista uprising in the 1990s, when a major political event happens in Mexico, it has immediate repercussions in the U.S. In that case, demonstrations and a movement of support developed quickly. A while back, someone in the movement for revolution with some familiarity with the Chicano student movement and the struggles in México and I were noting a phenomenon that developed in MEChA, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan. This is the Chicano student group that came of the '60s and still exists on many campuses throughout the Southwest and beyond, including in the Northeast. We were both in California at the time of the battle around Prop 187 in 1984, in which MEChA pretty much took a hands-off attitude. (Prop 187 was a ballot initiative that passed before being overturned in the courts that would have prohibited undocumented immigrants from using health care, public education, and other social services in California.) The dominant trend among the Chicano students in it did not identify with Mexico. That was not their framework. Within a short time afterwards, the outlook dramatically changed. Increasingly, the members were the children of immigrants who definitely identified with Mexico and their parents, and many of the students, were the targets of Prop 187 and other anti-immigrant attacks.
At the time of the Mexican revolution an estimated one million Mexicans out of a population of 15 million fled to the U.S. If a major crisis and upheaval broke out in Mexico, the U.S. rulers could confront both refugees fleeing north as well as political upheaval in this country, especially if the U.S. tried to intervene. And would they have a choice not to intervene? I raise all of this because this still is a big part of how the U.S. is looking at the border and immigrants.
As one scholar wrote in the late 1980s, the history of the border is a history of military occupation. For the last 20 years, the U.S. has been on a drive to heavily militarize the border, to both control the flow of immigrants and be in a position to seal the border in a time of crisis. This has continued despite a dramatic drop in apprehensions. Obama has deported more immigrants than any other president. While technically true, this needs some clarification. What is being counted as deportations are cases in which immigrants are run through the legal deportation process and ordered deported. That number has increased dramatically. Historically, the overwhelming majority of people detained have signed voluntary departure waivers and returned. These do not count as deportations. This has less legal implications if they are caught again. The height of apprehensions and people returned was in 2000 under Clinton, when the number reached 1.86 million. Technically, a very small number of those were deported. This technicality made no difference to the vast majority of the 1.86 million because if they had not signed voluntary departure waivers, they would have been run through the formal deportation process and deported. Also, take note of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the 1.86 million people apprehended and returned to their home countries were caught at or near the border as they tried to cross or shortly after crossing, not within the interior of the U.S. In 2011 (the last year complete numbers are available) the number of people apprehended and returned had dropped to 715,495, a 62% drop since 2000. But as I said earlier, the number of people run through the deportation process and ordered deported has risen dramatically. In fiscal year 2013, 368,644 immigrants were deported. Of these, 133,551 were people arrested within the interior of the country and ordered deported. Arrests of people living within the U.S. have skyrocketed. These are the people that have been living here for many years, with families, some having grown up in the U.S. A Revolution article ("Obama's Deportation Record—A Nightmare for Immigrants"), referring to a report by Tanya Golash-Boza, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced, stated, “As Golash-Boza reports, Obama has not only deported more people than any other president, he has also separated more families. Between July 1, 2010, and September 30, 2012, nearly a quarter of all deportations involved parents whose children are U.S. citizens and can remain in the U.S. while one or both of their parents are forced to leave.”
I cited all the above statistics to show that although far fewer people are crossing, the militarization is full steam ahead. Note the Senate bill that was passed in the summer. It was made even worse than what Revolution wrote about it ("Proposed New Immigration Law: An Ominous Leap in Repression and the Need for Resistance"). It calls for a “surge” of 18,000 more Border Patrol agents, along with a host of other outrageous measures. My point is that there is more to the militarization than just stopping people that are crossing now. This merits some investigation.
Back in the 1980s the Rex '84 maneuvers and other contingency plans were exposed that showed plans for mass round-ups and detention of immigrants and dissidents as well as, in one case, the military occupation of northern Mexico. Something is going on here. While apprehensions have dropped dramatically, both as a result of the militarization of the border and the economic crisis that erupted in 2008 and the drying up of jobs in the U.S., the U.S. has been ratcheting up the repression of immigrants and how they handle those apprehended. I do not have all the facts and figures but this is some of what they are doing. The government has been doing two things of note. As mentioned earlier, more and more people are not being given voluntary departure but are run through the system and formally ordered to be deported. This gives them a record and if they are caught again, they can be prosecuted for a felony. In fiscal year 2013, immigrant prosecutions reached an all-time high of 97,384, up 367% over the past 10 years. In many sectors of the southern border, the U.S. has instituted Operation Streamline. In some sectors, everyone detained is prosecuted, sent to jail for up to six months for first-time illegal entries, and then deported. Subsequent arrests can lead to felony convictions and possible time in jail for ten years or more. In the Southwest, federal courts are being swamped with cases where people are being prosecuted for illegal entry and other immigration-related charges. Over 50% of all federal felony convictions are now for immigration violations. Latinos are now over 50% of the federal prison population. This is part of the criminalization and mass incarceration of immigrants. In addition, on any given day, 33,000 are in immigration detention.
All of this has engendered beginning resistance. In October, 12 people chained themselves to the wheels of two deportation buses in Tucson that were headed to Operation Streamline at a federal court where six people chained themselves to the doors. These actions shut down the court for the day, a first. This was part of the #Not1MoreDeportation campaign, organized by the National Day Labor Organizing Network. They demand that the president stop deportations, end the Secure Communities Deportation Program, and stop the enforcement of all Immigration (ICE) Holds. In mid-December, nine people were arrested in Virginia as they lay down in a roadway, linked with PVC pipe to block buses from leaving a deportation center.
On December 10, eight people were arrested for blocking the buses at the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, NJ. They had chained themselves together with locks across the roadway. On November 19, about 50 people temporarily blocked the deportation buses at the Broadview Detention Center in Illinois while some were arrested. In mid-September, seven undocumented immigrants chained themselves to the gates of the White House to demand an end to deportations. The second week of December, activists in Philly chained themselves to the doors of the federal court.
On October 11, according to a report from Derechos Humanos, in South Tucson, 40 Border Patrol and Tucson police attacked community members with pepper spray and rubber bullets when they came out to support three immigrants arrested at a traffic stop. According to the report, “People in the nearby neighborhood and community members from Southside Workers Center and Southside Presbyterian Church went to advocate for these men and bear witness to this abuse. After officers on the scene called Border Patrol and detained the men at their vehicle, people from the crowd of bystanders circled the Border Patrol vehicle by holding hands in an act of courage to protect these men from being potentially deported. When the community of support took brave action to stand together and prevent Border Patrol from leaving with the driver and his passenger, more BP agents arrived and proceeded to attack the group.”
The above give a sense of the outrage among some. Despite the hope that there would be “change you can believe in,” the hope has turned into even more of a nightmare. People are feeling betrayed as more people are rounded up within the U.S. and deported. Of note is the increasing number of undocumented, especially the youth, that are directly challenging all this, risking arrest, and in some cases being arrested. As seen in the young Korean-American man challenging Obama during his speech, people want the deportations to stop. I included the South Tucson example because it shows how sharp and volatile the situation is.
A number of immigrant rights groups have condemned the Senate bill and the increasing militarization of the border. Many people in southern Arizona are outraged by living in a war zone and rights free zone. A number of articles point to a “Constitution Free Zone” within 100 miles of the border where the Border Patrol can stop and carry out searches of people without warrants or probable cause. Some have pointed out that 197 million people in the U.S. live within 100 miles of a border since the east and west coasts are considered borders. Despite apprehensions being way down at the border, people are still dying at the border. 183 people died at the Mexico-Arizona border from October 2012 to 2013, down from 253 in the same one year period in 2009-2010. All of this is pushing people to resist. While the resistance is still within the framework of trying to pressure Obama, this is a very good development. Something is brewing among the masses and activists in Arizona that we need to investigate further.
While the immigrant rights movement has died down quite a bit since the upsurge in 2006, the intense contradictions around immigration and the border have not gone away. The potential upheaval in Mexico and the repercussions in the U.S. are lurking not too far in the background. The U.S. is carrying out the militarization of the border and creating a war zone with hi tech equipment, drones and militarized police state, all of this targeted at the masses on both sides of the border. What they are driven to do to both defend and extend their empire is fueling these contradictions.
Something I want to add, which again merits further investigation, is how mass incarceration and the horrors that flow from it are increasingly targeting Latino youth. While the U.S. economy is heavily dependent on super-exploitable immigrant labor, their children born here are a different story. They are much like the Black youth: cannot be profitably exploited, have no future under this system, are seen as a threat. This is, also, part of the picture.
Getting back to the two quotations from BAsics at the beginning, all of this has big implications for the future. Again, this piece is not intended to be comprehensive and exhaustive. We do need to do investigation, including social investigation, into many of these questions. There is certainly the potential for greatly increased political ferment and upheaval among immigrants and their allies. Who knows where the fight over immigration among the ruling class will go, but all indications are that it will intensify and it will go nowhere good. And that could unleash great upheaval among the immigrant masses. The huge and unprecedented outpourings by millions of immigrants in 2006, while very much coming from the belief that the system could be pressured into letting people in (and this is in stark opposition to how the imperialists are looking at all this strategically), was not a fluke. I do think we need to conceptualize scenarios around these questions in relationship to the quotations from BAsics. As I said at the beginning, these big changes could be a big strength and force for revolution. How do we influence and tap into this? We do need to address some of these questions in Revolution and on revcom.us. This is it for now and I look forward to discussing this further.
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