On Monday night hundreds came out to the Broadview Detention Center in suburban Chicago to protest the growing racism against immigrants epitomized by passage of an Arizona law widely seen as promoting racial profiling of Latinos.
The following morning, dozens were arrested in an attempt to blockade vans taking deportees out of the country.
Besides racial profiling, a particularly noxious provision of Arizona's SB 1070 will criminalize anyone who does not report undocumented immigrants in their midst -- effectively trying to turn teachers, healthcare workers, neighbors and religious advisers into agents of the government.
LGBT people with an international viewpoint will note the parallels this provision has to that of a noxious anti-gay bill currently pending in Uganda. The Ugandan bill threatens criminal penalties against those who don't report Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals to the authorities.
In signing the anti-immigrant bill, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer claimed she did so because "it represents what is best for Arizona." But not only does Brewer's "Arizona" not encompass immigrants or Latinos, it also apparently doesn't include Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals. Governor Brewer, who has said "God has placed me in this powerful position," last year nixed domestic partners health benefits for state employees who are part of same-sex couples.
Some Democratic politicians have attempted to cast President Obama as an ally against SB 1070, and earlier today Obama voiced opposition to it.
But seen in the context of his actions, Obama's "opposition" to SB 1070 is little more than political posturing. His after-the-fact opposition seems designed mainly to secure the burgeoning Latino vote, while delivering no substantive reforms for immigrants.
He has continued to build the wasteful and environmentally destructive border wall. His anti-NAFTA one-up-man-ship versus Hillary Clinton during the rust state primaries (the economic devastation wrought by NAFTA being a primary driver of immigration) is now conveniently forgotten.
Under Obama, the rate of deportations has increased nearly 50 percent last year over the number deported by George W. Bush in 2007. When challenged by the racist right, Obama pirouetted to the right in true Clintonian fashion, boasting that his health care "reform" explicitly excludes undocumented immigrants, unlike the universal health care programs in place in most other economically advanced nations.
The "Yes We Can" candidate cynically appropriated the main slogan of the immigrant rights movement ("Si se peude"), delivered nothing, and now expects the left to bail his party out in the Congressional bi-elections. The immigrant rights movement, indeed all progressive movements, must resist this lure.
Our movements have won their greatest gains not by dint of which party was in office, but by how powerful we were in the streets. And that power derives not just from large numbers in the streets, but even more importantly, our independence from both major parties.
A few years ago, huge numbers successfully mobilized against the Sensenbrenner bill. But once that bill was defeated, the immigration rights movement rapidly deflated, as many of its leaders gave political cover to the Democrats, who now held the main levers of power in Washington. Lack of opposition to the main power in DC tragically neutered the movement at a time when its huge numbers in the streets, combined with the momentum brought by the defeat of Sensenbrenner, could have been the springboard to widespread amnesties for the undocumented.
This Saturday's May Day march is an excellent opportunity to rebuild the elan of the movement seen in the early days against Sensenbrenner, and hopefully rebuild it on a far more solid political basis than the failed reliance on the Democrats.
The rally begins at 1 PM in Union Park (just south of the Green and Pink el lines' "Ashland" stop at Ashland Avenue and Lake Street, followed by a march to the Loop beginning at 3 PM.
