Immigrant rights movement debates Gutierrez ‘reform’ plan

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TUCSON, Ariz.—Last year Roberto Lovato spearheaded the campaign against anti-immigrant hatemonger Lou Dobbs, successfully pressuring the CNN television network to stop giving Dobbs a platform. Lovato was the keynote speaker at the annual fundraising dinner of Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Coalition) on Feb. 19, in Tucson.

Lovato explained that he grew up in the Mission district of San Francisco. His parents were from El Salvador and worked as union members, his mother at a hotel chain as a member of HERE and his father at United Airlines. His father’s practical sense and his mother’s dreams helped Roberto Lovato become the gadfly journalist he is today.

In his speech at the Derechos Humanos dinner Lovato focused on the situation in the immigrant rights movement today. The proponents of “comprehensive immigration reform,” he pointed out, are backed by millions of dollars from foundations and by the political machinery of the Democratic Party establishment. Their main organization is Reform Immigration for America (RIFA, also spelled RI4A). These forces claim to represent the “Rational Center,” supposedly promising legalization for undocumented workers in exchange for increased enforcement and border militarization.

RIFA is planning to hold a demonstration for “immigration reform” in Washington, D.C., on March 21. They are mainly interested, Lovato said, in winning Latino votes for the Democrats.

RIFA’s main focus is to campaign in support of a bill introduced in the House of Representatives in December 2009 by Luis Gutierrez, Democratic Congressman from Illinois. While outlining a complicated, manyyears-long process by which undocumented workers in this country (estimated at 12 million) could apply for legal status, the bill confirms and strengthens all the existing enforcement and militarization policies, especially E-Verify, a program under which thousands and thousands of workers are being fired or have been fired from their jobs during the past year.

A network of more principled immigrant-rights groups across the country collaborated in drafting an Open Letter explaining the defects and drawbacks of the Gutierrez bill, which, as the letter says, “does not offer real solutions.” Supporters of the Open Letter include Isabel Garcia, co-chair of Derechos Humanos, and immigrant-rights journalist David Bacon.

Open Letter supporters attended the Latino Congreso in El Paso the last weekend of January and succeeded in having the Congreso adopt a resolution based on the Open Letter, under the title “Let’s Have a Debate on Immigration Reform.” Readers can view the resolution on the Latino Congreso website at this address: www.latinocongreso.org/resolutonapproved. php?id=259. Ron Edmonds / AP Significantly, the Latino Congreso also took a strong position on three foreign-policy questions. One, it criticized President Obama’s tacit support of the military coup d’état in Honduras. Two, it opposed the establishment of new U.S. military bases in Colombia. And three, it urged immediate release of the Cuban Five, anti-terrorist fighters who have been kept imprisoned in the United States for more than 10 years.

(Note: A few minor inaccuracies in the version of the Open Letter adopted in El Paso have been corrected, and a press conference to publicly launch the letter and seek more endorsements is scheduled for early March.)

As Roberto Lovato pointed out in his Tucson speech, the more principled immigrant-rights organizations do not receive the millions of dollars in foundation money that go to the police-state-minded borderwall-lovers of the “Rational Center.” He appealed for funds to keep the radical wing of the immigrant-rights movement going, and he included in that “left pole” such groups as Derechos Humanos, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and (a less clear-cut example) the Latino Congreso itself.

To make individual or group endorsements of the Open Letter, readers can go to the website of the Grassroots Immigrant Justice Network. n permanent low-paid legal immigration labor force with no rights and the ability to drive down the wages of U.S. workers, both documented and undocumented. Senate proposals include the immediate creation of such a guest-worker program. All the while, thousands of workers, as at UPS, will soon be fired from their jobs. While UPS and other companies claim they are only going along with the law, in truth they are all too happy to be “compelled” to remove thousands from their payrolls. For UPS, this means they can replace higher paid seniority workers with new hires, starting at $8.50 with no medical benefits for one year. The firings also can have the effect of sending a collective chill down the backs of remaining workers as they see the company throw their fellow workers out into the street.

For the fired workers, who have dedicated years of hard work in a grueling and physically demanding job, E-Verify has thrown their lives into turmoil. The company they have helped to make billions in profits is now kicking them out the door. This same process is being repeated around the country at thousands of employers. Is this the “just” immigration policy promised by Obama?

The fight for immigration reform must start with a defense of fired workers. The entire labor movement, immigrantrights movement, and their allies must come to the defense of the workers being targeted under the E-Verify system. Both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations have declared their opposition to E-Verify in resolutions; now is the time for them to put their words into action. This attack on immigrant workers is an attack on all workers—it deserves a response by all workers.

Instead of looking for help from Washington politicians, who have only worsened conditions for immigrants, the labor and immigrant-rights movement must return to the streets and picket lines to demand an end to all firings and for amnesty for all workers.

Mass marches such as those that occurred in 2006, and the 2008 worker occupation of Republic Windows and Doors, are examples of what can be accomplished when workers gain confidence to fight and mobilize to defend their rights. Such a return to action is the only hope for a change in immigration policies and the only hope for these workers under attack. n Socialist Action march 2010 3