Our Struggle
(Nuestra Lucha)

Needed: a new immigration policy 

Times are tough for working people, particularly the immigrants among us. As we enter an economic slowdown and a prolonged economic restructuring across the nation, progressive forces are once again turning their attention to immigration. 

We start by examining our values. We hold a vision of a world that nurtures all of its children, providing them with education, health services, that will enable them to grow into productive democratic citizens. And, we value a society which respects its workers, providing them with decent housing, health care, wages and working conditions. 

Global structural changes 

The world is experiencing a major restructuring of the global economy, directed by transnational corporations and the institutions which these corporations control (NAFTA, WTO, FTAA,GATT). In many developing countries economic restructuring plans imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have led to unemployment rates of over 40%. In the current era, the economic forces of neo-liberalism, or global corporate capitalism, are unrestrained by governments. For example, in Mexico neo-liberal policies have devastated the countryside. Federal subsidies for corn, sugar and produce were ended and development projects stoped. The policies of the governments in Mexico and Central America have driven thousands off of their lands, many come to the U.S. looking for work. The impoverishment of the vast majority, in pursuit of profit for the minority, has pushed millions to migrate in search of food, and employment. Global capitalism produces global migration.

As socialists, we are internationalists. We support the right of all people to migrate to places where they can participate economically and earn a decent living for themselves and their families. We reject the current situation neo-liberal economics which violates even the basic theories of capitalism. It visits upon working people the worst possible scenario, of free movement of capital, called free trade, and controlled movement of workers. Workers in both the developed world and the developing world loose in this unequal mixture. Neo-liberal trade policies, combined with restrictive immigration practices makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer, at home and abroad. It places the displaced farmer in Mexico in competition with the auto worker in Michigan, or the meat packer in Iowa.

As long as we have a rich country in the North, and severe poverty and repression of labor in Latin America and Asia, people are going to flee looking for work to feed their families, just as Germans, Greeks, Italians, Jews, Irish, Poles, and Russians did from 1840 -1920. Our current labor unions and our social legislation including the eight hour day, the forty hour week, social security and public schools grew from unions based in these immigrant communities.

By filing the need for low-skilled labor, immigrants create and sustain new industries in the US. Anti immigrant movements in US history, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the present, have always exploited racism and prejudice. These movements pit one group of exploited workers against another group of exploited workers, for the benefit of corporate profits.

Progressives movements have a common interest in resisting the current campaigns of racism and terror launched against immigrant communities. We have a lot to gain from union solidarity and building a united workers movement. And we have a lot to lose from the divisive and oppressive police state tactics of the Immigration Service and the Border Patrol. The militarization of the border has caused hundreds more deaths of innocents, seeking to feed their families, and no real reduction in immigration. The policy has failed.

Policy proposals:

1. All human beings deserve protection of a social safety net including health care, education of their children, and the right to organize in unions.

2. The removal of pre-natal care deprives US citizen children of needed health care and thus is a violation of the universal rights of children and the specific rights of US citizens.

3. Guest workers in the United States deserve decent housing, working conditions, and safety.

4. We recognize and support the development of Unions efforts to organize and defend all workers.

There are at least 2 million undocumented workers working in the U.S. at this time. They dominate farm labor, hotel and restaurants, meat packing and construction industries (in the southwest) among other industries. These workers need and deserve a new law to protect their rights and to allow them to become permanent residents and/or citizens.

The Latino Commission of DSA began its existence working for immigrants rights, and we return to this emphasis today.

Under a bill sponsored by the United Farm workers Union, and introduced by Senator Ed Kennedy and Howard Berman

* Farm workers, for the first time, would have rights under federal law to

organize and join a union — rights industrial workers won in 1935. Farm workers have this right in California.

* Undocumented farm workers are allowed to apply for permanent residency after completing 90 days of farm work in each of three out of four years.

• A new Guest worker program would be created under the federal Migrant and Seasonal Worker Protection Act, the basic U.S. law protecting domestic farm laborers.

In addition to the Kennedy-Berman bill, new legislation is needed to provide

A process for workers in several industries (food services, hotels, janitors, construction) to obtain permanent resident status.