By Refugio Mata
So what does immigration have to do with Occupy Wall Street? Well, for starters, it's all about corporate greed. As a blogger for Project Economic Refugee, I've been yelling at the top of my lungs since 2007 about the urgent need to re-focus our national conversation on immigration. It has not been easy.
The problem is that not at a lot of people are talking about one of the major root causes of our immigration problems: the displacement of people from their homelands as a consequence of policies like NAFTA or the austerity measures from the International Monetary Fund that have decimated livelihoods across entire industries. Take for example, the outrageous case of the Mexican farmers that ended up as undocumented immigrants in the U.S. after being displaced by genetically modified corn from the U.S.
In the fight for immigrant rights, we have witnessed powerful and inspiring moments of defiance against the status quo long before the Occupy Wall Street movement ever took root. We have experienced the gigantic marches across cities demanding immigration reform. We have also seen the rise of the DREAM Act activists organizing a level of cutting edge advocacy in the Latino community not seen since the days of Cesar Chavez. Yet, most of those efforts have focused only on passing some form of legislation to reform immigration policies.
I have always argued that immigration reform is a good first step. However, most of the efforts to change the system have not tackled the root cause of our immigration problems: the socio-economic inequalities that have displaced people from their homelands and are bound to continue even if immigration reform is passed.
In the aftermath of the eviction of Occupy Wall Street camps across the nation, immigration issues present an exciting opportunity to finally change our national conversation in revolutionary ways. Occupiers find themselves at a crossroads: either innovate and grow or face obscurity. Occupy activists are just as fired up and ready for the next stage in the evolution of the movement. Perhaps this is exactly the right time to boost the immigrant rights component of the Occupy Wall Street movement for both immigrant rights activists and the Occupiers.
I'm talking about building a long-lasting infrastructure to fight against a common enemy: the greed of the 1% that has devastated our communities. Both immigrant rights and Occupy Wall Street activists could benefit exponentially from such a strategy. Rapid actions focused on fighting foreclosures and on immigration issues have already injected much needed energy to the rallying cry of the "we are the 99%" slogan. Occupy I.C.E. was launched in Los Angeles and New York quickly followed suit.
In light of the record-breaking numbers of deportations our community has faced, it's not just the Occupy Wall Street protesters that find themselves at a crossroads. The immigrant rights movement finds itself on the same road, wondering how we can fight back against the attacks on our families that not only face evictions from our homes, but evictions from the U.S. I believe it's time for all of us to innovate and grow our movements or prepare to face obscurity.
Refugio Mata is a Public Relations specialist and founder of Project Economic Refugee. He graduated from CSU Northridge and has been an organizer for immigrant rights, economic and environmental justice issues ever since.
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Rep. Luis Gutierrez: Immigration, Deportation and States' Rights: What Martha Taught Me
http://documentarystorm.com/inside-job/
As a retired US Border Patrol/INS/ICE agent who has witnessed the death of not only two co-workers, but the death of migrants too, I ask people who are so angry about immigration to consider the possibility that the undocumented are really a symptom of a much larger and insidious problem, and not the cause of that problem.
First of all, may I ask you two questions about the Mexican undocumented? I focus upon the Mexican undocumented because they are our direct neighbors and make up almost 50% of the total amount of undocumented present in the US. (I later will also combine illegal Mexican immigration and illegal Mexican drugs because they are so intricately connected).
(1) Would the Mexican undocumented come or stay here if they could make a comparable living wage and have comparable social services living and working safely at home with their families?
(2) Why do we seldom if ever hear US politicians criticize the corrupt Mexican government for its contribution to, and its responsibility for illegal Mexican immigration to the US?
Failed immigration is very similar to other failures in our country which are destroying the middle class. Those include but are not limited to our disastrous mortgage meltdown, failed health care, high unemployment, the high exportation of jobs, and our high cost of living.
full article:
http://twopesos-protestfortheundocumented.blogspot.com/2011/12/but-for-grace-of-god-go-i.html
http://www.economicrefugee.net/irans-mexicos-election-fraud/
Until they demand some sort of change there is not going to be any change.
Also they have been doing this for a long time, way before the Occupy movement, lest we forget the killings during the 60's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre
Do your homework. Cesar Chavez had no use for illegal immigrants and fought to keep them out of his union activities. He was aware of how they were used to break unions and depress wages. He turned them into the authorities everywhere he found them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Ch%C3%A1vez