[News] The Border War Comes Home

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/

May 18, 2006


The Border War Comes Home


Our Lives are on the Line

By JUAN SANTOS

He looked squarely into my eyes. "So, you see what's coming," he said.

I was speaking with one of the core leaders of 
the movement for migrant's rights, and had laid 
before him a sketch of a plan of resistance for 
the nation's barrios, for the protection of 
people from the mass raids and mass deportations 
that will result from new anti-migrant legislation being birthed in Washington.

"This is the calm before the storm; they're going 
to make it tough," Professor Armando Navarro had 
told LA's La Opinion. "They're talking about 
raids, deportations. In every barrio we have to 
organize migrant defense committees, and get ready for civil disobedience."

The meeting we had just attended unanimously 
called for the rejection of the so-called 
Hagel-Martinez "compromise" in the US Senate, 
under which as many as 7 million migrants could 
face deportation. Such a compromise would then 
have to be "reconciled" with House bill 4437, an 
even more extreme measure inspired by supporters 
of the ultra-Right and the racist shock troops called the Minutemen.

The House bill calls for the universal 
deportation of every woman, child and man in the 
country without papers, for an utterly 
devastating depopulation -an ethnic cleansing - 
of the barrio, and the destruction of much of its cultural and economic life.

The difference between the bills under 
consideration is the difference between partial 
and virtually complete ethnic cleansing, and any 
"compromise" between such measures will not 
change the racist and quasi-genocidal nature of 
the result. A "compromise" can only mean the 
deportation of millions and the legal 
stigmatization and terrorization of millions more.

Under international law, ethnic cleansing means 
the expulsion from a territory of one ethnic 
group by another, and pertains to official 
policies aimed at the forcible removal of a 
targeted group. The crime is considered a form of 
forced emigration, deportation and genocide.

International law recognizes ethnic cleansing as 
a crime against humanity when carried out in a 
time of literal warfare. The US war on migrants 
is the moral equivalent of ethnic cleansing. It is a crime against humanity.

Fittingly, the Bush administration has flatly 
stated its intent to make "enforcement" the 
cutting edge of its new approach to migrants, and 
to prove the point it recently initiated the 
largest single mass arrest of migrants in US 
history, and put a severe new focus on penalizing employers, as well.

Bush has already deported more people than any other president in U.S. history.

Since he took office ICE has deported some 
150,000 migrants a year and had deported 881,478 
people through 2005, figures that do not include, 
for example, the 1.2 million people who were 
arrested at the U.S.-Mexican border itself last year.

Now, in his Monday night speech, Bush has 
promised to fulfill one of the Minutemen's most 
draconian hopes ­ turning the border into a green 
zone, a quasi-military zone occupied by forces of 
the National Guard, backed by a super high tech 
"virtual" wall ­ a wall more deadly, and more effective, than a mere fence.

And, in apparent defiance of the Posse Comitatus 
Act ­ which forbids the use of military troops 
within US borders - the House recently passed 
legislation that, according to the Pentagon, 
"gives authority to the Defense Department to 
assign military members to assist Homeland 
Security organizations in preventing the entry of 
terrorists, drug traffickers and illegal aliens into the United States"

Migrant deaths at the border are expected to 
skyrocket, and the State is already building mass 
detention centers for migrants. Bush claims he's 
not "militarizing" the border. His claim will 
mean nothing to the dead and the incarcerated.

Every version of the so-called "immigration 
reform laws" now under renewed consideration in 
Washington also authorizes and pays local police 
to act as immigration agents and to oversee the 
deportation of those they arrest, effectively 
adding a permanent quasi-military force of 
650,000 for "internal enforcement" of immigration laws.

This is an example of the "middle ground" on 
migrants trumpeted by the US's white colonial 
ruling elite: the state will combine mass raids 
with the slow process of day by day racial 
profiling to eliminate the migrant population. 
According to an ICE plan called Operation Engame, 
they mean to deport every "deportable" migrant by the year 2012.

In his Monday speech Bush said migrants are 
"beyond the reach and protection of American 
law." Indeed, he means to get them in his grasp, 
but their "protection" is nowhere on the agenda.

The plan is to control and terrorize the migrants 
who will remain in the US, and to incarcerate and 
deport the rest. When that much is achieved, the 
ruling elites will find themselves in a 
comfortable position to continuously exploit the 
labor of a subjugated, highly controlled and 
vulnerable ethnic under-caste, and they will have 
provided themselves with the kind of ethnic 
scapegoat essential to the development of a new US-style fascism.


False Hopes

The hopes of millions of migrants have been 
ignited by the recent wave of protests, and by 
the hope that white America will find them ­ with 
their white t-shirts and American flags -acceptable, tolerable, even welcome.

The shock will be immense.

Migrants will learn in a brutal fashion that the 
concern of America's elite has never had anything 
to do with surrender, white shirts, white dreams, 
or any other indication of who, as people, 
migrants might be or wish to be. The only concern 
of the ruling elites is their own need for 
migrants as exploitable workers ­ like the slave 
master of the Old South they need their workers.

There is another motive as well: today's elites 
also fear the very people they need - just like 
any slave master. The fear is compounded by the 
knowledge that today's master is not only an 
exploiter, he is also a usurper: the land he 
thrives on was stolen from the very people he 
degrades and dehumanizes with the epithet "illegal."

And it's not just Republicans and open white 
racists who are afraid. It's many "liberals," 
too. Ed Schultz, the liberal talk show host, 
recently offered two factors as a bottom line on 
why migrants should stay: "the economy needs them" and "they can make trouble."

The fear is so intense that, because of our mass 
protests, the worst elements of the Sensenbrenner 
bill ­ HR4437 ­ were momentarily derailed as 
different elements of the ruling class scrambled 
and bickered among themselves to determine who 
will have the final say - to determine who among 
them can assure the needs of their economy while 
averting the threat that migrants represent to them all.

With every passing day, with every demonstration, 
with each child who prays each night that her 
parents can come out from the shadow of the 
stigma of being hunted and despised, with each 
heartbeat of rising hope, the noose around the 
neck of the ruling class gets just a little tighter; the options contract.

With each day, each hour, the danger for the 
ruling elites of crushing the life and death 
expectations of migrants grows exponentially. 
Politically correct or not, every American flag 
carried in the recent mass demonstrations 
represents a rising, fluttering expectation, a 
sea of expectations whose depths promise 
shipwreck for the State, when, as it must, it 
betrays the promise of "freedom" and racial "equality."

The crushing of those expectations could lead 
directly to rebellion in the streets, following 
the example of the recent rebellion of migrants 
in France, and of the African American rebellions 
of the 1960s. When Martin Luther King was 
overcome, when he lay dead of an assassin's 
bullet in Memphis, a hundred cities burned across the nation.

They burned because it had become clear to the 
African American people that after more than a 
decade of struggle nothing fundamental in the 
structure of oppression had changed, that the 
changes that occurred had been mere surface 
changes, compromises, like the Hagel-Martinez 
bill today, aimed at silencing them, not at 
transforming the conditions of their lives or the 
oppression that afflicted them.

The ruling elites have not forgotten for a moment 
the mass rebellion in Los Angeles of 1992. 
Migrant neighborhoods were a focal point of 
intense uprisings; the unity between Black and 
Brown was as palpably intense as the flames that 
engulfed the city ­ and utterly terrifying to all 
of those whose daily task is to keep us down.

As if to underscore the point, police were all 
but invisible in the recent pro-migrant marches 
in downtown LA ­ although over a million of us 
were in the streets. But in Pico Union, where 
another million marched, riot squads were visible 
everywhere, even until past midnight. Pico Union 
was a storm center of the LA rebellion. Half of 
those arrested in that period were Brown.

Is it any wonder, then, that the rulers have 
taken pause for thought about just how far they 
dare to go in the war on immigrants? 
Sensenbrenner went too far with HR4437 ­ he 
awakened the threat. Now they must gauge a thing 
all but impossible to gauge: just how far is too far?

No one on either side of the equation knows the answer to that question.

One thing at least is clear ­ no one in the white 
mainstream is going to come to the support of 
migrants unless migrants themselves stop wrapping 
themselves in the flag of the oppressor, and dare 
to stand up to oppression and unless they are 
willing to polarize the nation against their 
persecutors and defiantly challenge their racism.

At the same time our demands must be made clear 
and millions must be challenged to re-think their 
prejudices. That's exactly how the Black movement 
for freedom did it, and nothing less will do. The 
"problem," as one writer recently put it, isn't 
at the border; the problem isn't with immigration 
­ it's that migrants are being persecuted.

And voting won't change that, no matter what the 
"We Are America" coalition claims. A vote in 
November ­ and face it, most migrants simply 
aren't eligible to vote ­ will change nothing for 
the child whose mother or father is deported 
today. Even if the Democrats win in November, 
there is absolutely no guarantee that they will 
take up the question of immigration anew.

No. The harsh reality is that the Democrats have 
supported extremely draconian anti-migrant 
measures in their willingness to "compromise" 
with the overtly fascistic elements of the Republican Party.

The "compromise" already accepted by the 
Democrats includes mass deportations of up to 
several million people, the indefinite detention 
of migrants without due process, the treatment of 
minor offenses as "aggravated felonies" which 
would trigger harsh mandatory detention and 
deportation, and of course, unleashing the police 
as migrant hunters in a program of daily terror against our communities.

When the matter goes to the House/ Senate 
reconciliation committee, it can only get worse. 
The Democrats are no more likely to repeal the 
war on migrants than they have been willing to 
reverse their criminal support for the unjust 
colonial war of occupation against Iraq.

They will not relent unless we leave them no 
choice, unless, like the forces of resistance in 
other places and other times, we make the 
political price of continuing the war on migrants too high.


The Ultimate Showdown

The National Immigrant Solidarity Network says it 
clearly. "This is a critical moment for the immigrant struggle."

"We should brace ourselves," they say, "for the 
ultimate showdown of the immigrant struggle soon, 
and we should mobilize ourselves quickly to 
respond to the racist anti-immigrant xenophobia that will go down."

The group is calling for emergency community 
meetings to strategize rapid response to a 
possible nationwide crackdown or attack on immigrants.

No matter what the rulers do, short of a general 
legalization, they will present our people with 
unbearable choices, with an unimaginable grief of 
separation; with the mass destruction of what is 
most sacred to us; our families and communities.

Will we allow the rulers of America to deport our 
children, 2/3 of whom are citizens of their 
nation? Will we allow them to force us to leave 
our children behind? Will we let our children 
live in fear that their parents may not come home 
from work? That they will disappear? At what 
point will the grief, fear and rage become 
unbearable, and uncontainable? At what point must we say "¡Ya Basta!" ?

Flying the American flag has disarmed us. It is 
not our willingness to live by the rules that 
impresses the slave master ­ his entire regime is 
designed to ensure our compliance. What impresses 
him is our potential to awaken, to shatter the 
framework, to throw away the "rules".

Flying the US flag means we don't understand the 
ruthless nature of our enemies; it means a basic 
and unconscious allegiance to the idea of getting 
ahead and doing so on the backs of others, an 
unconscious allegiance to and imitation of the 
very foundations of the oppressor's outlook and 
his control of us, and an implicit acceptance of 
his colonial rule over stolen land and subjugated peoples.

Our enemies want to split our allegiances, they 
want us to grasp at individual chances for 
"acceptance" and "freedom," and to ignore the 
well being of our people as a whole. That, after 
all, is the real "American Dream" ­ private 
wealth and well being on the backs of other, subjugated peoples.

But we can no longer leave the fate of our 
children in their hands. We cannot allow our 
families to be shattered and our dreams to be 
crushed. We must refuse to live any longer in the 
shadows, refuse to live under slavery in any 
form. It is time to take matters into our own 
hands, to do once more what every migrant has 
already done just by crossing the border ­ make 
the decision to live, to survive together, no matter what they throw at us.

Let them deal with the ramifications of 
attempting mass repression against a people in 
resistance here, while they face a similar 
problem overseas. Let them worry about alienating 
Latin America and their European partners in war 
and conquest. Let them worry about permanently 
alienating the millions ­ Black and White - who 
already support us, and who understand that the 
powers that be are taking the nation toward 
fascism. Let them worry what will happen when 
they invade our barrios and workplaces in mass raids.

Let them worry while we organize; while we create 
mass networks of direct action and resistance. 
Let us truly follow the example of the Black 
Civil Rights Movement and of the Black Power 
Movement that followed it. The Black movement of 
the 1950s and 60s was a resistance movement, one 
that both obeyed the law, and which, through 
civil disobedience and other strategies, broke 
the law, as necessary, in obedience to a Higher Law.

Black people of that era laid their lives on the 
line for their freedom. We can do no less.

Let us put the slogan to the test: ¡Un Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido!

Si, se puede.

Juan Santos is an editor and writer in Los 
Angeles. He can be reached at 
<mailto:JuanSantos at Mexica.net>JuanSantos at Mexica.net


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