Analysis by Renee Saucedo
Members of the US Senate, as well as the Bush administration, are currently attempting to revive the most recent immigration proposal, which among other things, would separate families, heighten worker exploitation, further militarize the US/Mexico border, and provide no realistic path to residency for the vast majority of undocumented people now living in the US. This legislative proposal, as most “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” proposals in the past couple of years, will lead to more suffering and deaths and is nothing short of a human rights abomination.
Why has it been difficult for the immigrant rights struggle to push for a just legalization, or amnesty, law? What must we do to build a powerful and radical movement?
Part of reason why immigrant rights activists have failed in holding the US government accountable is because we are facing tremendous challenges. First, the intense level of state-sponsored terror against immigrant communities has made it difficult to organize in those communities. Since early this year, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have harassed, arrested, detained and deported over 20,000 migrants under “Operation Return To Sender.” Throughout the country, in cities and small towns, hundreds of workers are rounded-up at their worksites and deported, as what took place recently at an Oregon Del Monte plant. Uniformed ICE agent use Gestapo-type tactics to force their way into people’s homes without warrants. Parents in Redwood City, California were picked up as they dropped their children off at school. And people who “looked immigrant” were randomly questioned by ICE on the street in San Francisco, California.
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Why has it been difficult for the immigrant rights struggle to push for a just legalization, or amnesty, law? What must we do to build a powerful and radical movement?
Part of reason why immigrant rights activists have failed in holding the US government accountable is because we are facing tremendous challenges. First, the intense level of state-sponsored terror against immigrant communities has made it difficult to organize in those communities. Since early this year, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have harassed, arrested, detained and deported over 20,000 migrants under “Operation Return To Sender.” Throughout the country, in cities and small towns, hundreds of workers are rounded-up at their worksites and deported, as what took place recently at an Oregon Del Monte plant. Uniformed ICE agent use Gestapo-type tactics to force their way into people’s homes without warrants. Parents in Redwood City, California were picked up as they dropped their children off at school. And people who “looked immigrant” were randomly questioned by ICE on the street in San Francisco, California.
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