Inclusion is the Centerpiece of the New American Dream

Earlier this week, SEIU nurses, janitors, public city employees, security officers, homecare and childcare workers marched on Congress to call for a new American Dream for workers across the country. As they gathered here in Washington, D.C. for our political action convention, SEIU members once again stood united for affordable health care for all, an end to the Iraq war, and a livable wage for our hardest workers. This year, our members also made their voices heard on immigration reform.

Today, more so than at any other time in our nation's history, it is clear that we cannot reclaim the American Dream for workers--nor can we claim to honor the principles this country was founded upon--until we get serious about defending immigrant rights.

I once believed we were on an inevitable path to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would strengthen this nation and provide hardworking families with a path to citizenship and a chance at the American Dream. Yet last spring, this Congress and the Bush administration failed us. They failed to take the moral stand in the midst of a national crisis. They failed to lead, to provide a vision, and to restore hope.

As a result of that failure, we have witnessed an alarming increase in local anti-immigrant laws across the country. Instead of fixing the root causes of a broken immigration system, the Bush administration has chosen to spend billions of dollars to round up and detain thousands of innocent workers, break up families, and send children to lives of uncertainly in faraway places. Green card replacement regulations are suddenly subject to Byzantine new rules that will convert thousands of immigrants to the ranks of the undocumented. We await with dread social security "no match" provisions that threaten massive worksite disruptions, government sponsored discrimination, and a collapse of the Social Security Administration's infrastructure.

If these enforcement-only regulations are left unchecked, a year from now we will have more than just a deeply marginalized low-wage workforce and a battered immigrant population; we will also still have millions of low-wage workers--both native-born and immigrant--trying to eke out a meager existence amidst the ruins of this broken system. As the U.S. Census recently revealed, we stand witness to an ever-growing divide between "the haves" and the "have-nots," more people lacking basic health insurance, and more people living in abject poverty.

We are creating a system with first-class citizens and second-class workers, and institutionalizing the kind of racial discrimination we hoped this country left behind years ago. In short, we are creating a system that undermines the very foundations of the American Dream.

This is not the kind of hope and optimism that America needs today.

In spite of these grim realities, I did feel hope and enthusiasm with my brothers and sisters this week. During SEIU's Member Political Action Conference (MPAC), I witnessed an outpouring of energy and commitment to our shared values of treating all persons with respect and dignity. There was talk of securing healthcare for children, ending the war, finding a way to reward our work, and ensuring that hardworking people have the chance to become citizens.

If you are committed to the American Dream, you must value the lives and reward the work of all people. And part of valuing lives and rewarding work is making sure that those who have come to this country in search of a better life for their families are given the same chance to succeed as those who have come here before them.

Five of the Democratic candidates for President visited MPAC this week, and each pledged their commitment to comprehensive immigration reform. Senators Dodd, Clinton, Obama and Edwards and Governor Richardson all called for a path to citizenship for hardworking and taxpaying immigrants. Listening to them speak, I was reminded that we all share not only a similar dream, but also the great responsibility of making this a great nation.

Together, unified, we can and we must show how politics can change lives.

In the coming months, we will continue to mobilize, register new voters, and hold Presidential candidates and our elected leaders accountable to the highest standards. Together, we will use the power of our votes to ensure that America continues to be a land of opportunity for all and we will create a new American Dream in 2008.

Comments

[StokeyBob]

Dream Act???

Why the special treatment?

First the government comes in to our grade schools and tells us the children we are about to conceive are "unwanted" because the population is rising so fast and the resources are stretched to their limit.

Then the Revolutionaries in the government decide there is plenty of room for the criminals in businesses illegal labor.

On top of that we are stiffed with the medical and social services of the illegal invaders.

Now you want us to send our kids straight to work to pay for these lowlifes and there illegal schemes.

Give me a break.

How much more of this do you think we OR the economy will stand?

[StokeyBob]

This battle over a immigration has destroyed this once great nation.

Over and over we have passed comprehensive immigration bills and over and over we have found that our government will not keep its word. They hand out the gravy and amnesty for their illegal invaders and never get around to the enforcement parts of the bill.

In the sixties they came into the grade schools and manipulated us with stories that the children we were about to conceive were, “Unwanted” because the population was rising so fast there wasn’t going to be enough resources or room on the roads and things. The same criminals holding the floodgates open now did this to my generation.

Even though the farmers have had legal ways to bring in labor they have choose illegal labor. That stiffs the honest worker in this country with the bill for their illegal employees medical and other social services.

We have been lied to over and over and over by our(?) government.

We have our troops spread all over the world when it is their job to defend us.

We are low on things like ammunition.

Do you have any idea just how weak this Revolution of the governments has made us?

How many of those that have put up with the lawlessness and the lies for all of these decades would go all out to keep them in power if attacked?

We are going to have to restore law and order in our government before we can restore law and order in our streets.

[praxis00]

It's astonishing to me the amount of privilege I'm reading on these boards. Are your family trees so securely rooted? Have you any idea about the driving forces that have led people to these shores and the amazing boon it is to the economy to have 12 million undocumented workers who pay sales tax and in many cases income taxes yet will never collect social security or Medicaid? And please spare me the citations about the cost to schools, hospitals, etc., as there are data to contradict that as well.

Ultimately, this is a moral issue. And I think those of you so focused on "illegal" immigrants need to reexamine your consciences and ask yourselves how much your antipathy is driven by ethnocentrism, xenophobia and racism.

[CLR]

Why not go the the countries of these ILLEGAL aliens and help them change their governments so they don't have to come over here? I am not willing to pay BILLIONS to educate and provide health care for ILLEGALS. ILLEGALS are causing our health care systems to collapse and they are bringing down our educational systems. Legal immigration is fine but ILLEGALS need to go home now!

[CLR]

Your "American Dream" is really a nightmare. Amnesty will not help our country. We have limits to the amount of immigrants we can take in. We need to do this in a LEGAL way. Right now we are spending BILLIONS to educate and provide health care for ILLEGALS. We need to use that money on our own citizens! ILLEGAL aliens need to be deported, people who hire ILLEGALS should be heavily fined, and we should return to the original intent of the 14th amendment and do away with anchor babies. To really achieve the American dream you need to come to this country LEGALLY!

[TIME]

What has disappeared, is a strong union movement.

Our forefathers fought and died to ensure fair work, pay and benefits for all. It's no surprise that as the unions have died, so have workers rights and working conditions, including immigrants. Unions were one way to ensure better conditions for the immigrant population.

As manufacturing jobs leave the country and service jobs fill that void, it's time service (and office) job workers unite to fight for the best conditions possible, including immigrants who work agriculture positions.

[surfergirl]

I am disgusted by the way the so called immigration people keep trying to shove the "ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS" down my throat. I have always been a fairly liberal believer. But I also believe in the sovereignty of my country. When the countries these people come from open their countries to us the american citizens in the exact same way as we do then ok. I personally am sick and tired of people that break law after law starting with the illegal entry into the USA. And if you don't think it is costing me; yes me you have got a problem. All you have to do is cross the border and see how these people have allowed their country to look like a third world. They have been around as long as the USA and yet allow the small percentage of the rich to run their lives. That is their problem not mine.
I want immigration but on a scale that is controllable and with a mixture of races, religions etc. I also am sick and tired of hearing how hard working all these illegals are. The last four companies I have worked for have all had illegals and personally they don't work much harder than anyone else. I have even stopped giving as much to charity as I use to because I know it feeds and clothes many of them. I now give to charities that are offshore ie: Darfur, Afghanistan etc. How about a movie titled " A Day in America Without an American" No illegal mows my lawn, sits my kids; or nurses me. And I thank God that I don't have children in school with the mix of illegals that do not speak English. I am not a bigot it is just that enough is enough. We gringos are the stupid ones.

[Hattie]

There is something to that last sentence.

[triestina]

Especially when you remember that the richest man in the world now, according to Forbes, is mexican
!

[IntrepidReader]

I can't imagine why illegals expect that Congress will give them any more attention than it gives the rest of the American public.

They're too busy voting to raise the debt ceiling again (for the second time this year, funding Iraq with money borrowed from China, whining about how nothing can stop Bush and failing to uphold our constitution to give a rat's ass about American workers, legal or illegal.

[RCronin]

dragn1, et al -
.......Sigh.....

There are still those who feel that improper or false documentation is , of course, illegal and must be PUNISHED ---- even for the peon trying to better his lot in life while he contributes to the United States.

Let's talk about taxes. Sales tax ->> paid by anyone who purchases consumer goods, including "illegals" shopping at the supermarket. Property taxes --->> paid by property owners, including landlords who rent their properties to "illegals" ( the tax is paid, yes ? ). State and Federal Income Taxes -->> the great hidden secret in the Social Security Administration is the flood of tax revenue paid into false / duplicate Social Security Numbers that will NEVER be refunded to the "illegal" worker. Quite simply, the "illegal" immigrant with false SSN is propping up the Social Security fund, and making the current payments to support Grandma's Social Security checks. Illegal immigrant workers represent a vast underground producing economy.

Yes, yes, of course, the underground economy includes drug runners, thieves, and criminals. Let's get them up on the radar screen. And we're not going to get them up on the radar screen until there's a credible program for guest workers and a fair path to citizenship.

Now, if your true interest is to mete out punishment for "illegal" activity --- then, sorry, you can't be helped. I guess the plantation slaves who fled the Confederacy were also "illegals". The term they used during that period of U.S. history was "contrabands."

[CLR]

ILLEGAL aliens cost us BILLIONS! We need to deport them all and use those billions on our own citizens.

[dragn1]

It seems that one word is always missed; illegal. It is ok, the dems will let in the 20+ million and their families, so 100 million the system will bankrupt when they try and have taxes at above 50 percent to pay for all the low wage job benefits.