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The fight for immigrant rights







 

SUBJECTS BELOW:
Stories from the struggle
Voices of the movement
The anti-immigrant hysteria
Immigration, capitalism and U.S. politics
The witch-hunt of Arabs and Muslims
History and politics of the struggle

LATEST NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Slavery in the land of the free
In tomato fields in Immokalee, Fla., in a shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., in the sweatshops of LA, immigrant workers are enduring modern-day slavery.

Shipyard workers defy slave-like conditions
Refusing to work in slave-like conditions, 100 immigrant guest workers from India walked out of a shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss.

Congressional immigrant bashers on the move
The halls of Congress are filling up again with proposed legislation that scapegoats immigrants.

 

STORIES FROM THE STRUGGLE

Immigrant workers in a Chicago factory:
Victory on the picket line
The remarkable struggle of immigrant strikers at a nonunion soap factory ended in an unexpected victory, with the threat of termination based on immigration status withdrawn.

The new sanctuary movement
A new faith-based movement to "awaken the moral imagination of the country" hopes to provide sanctuary for undocumented immigrants whose deportation would break up families.

Outrage at LA cops' May Day assault
Swinging clubs and firing dozens of rounds of "less-than-lethal" rubber bullets, officers of the LAPD terrorized some 15,000 participants in a peaceful May Day rally.

We refuse to live in fear
It's the new face of immigration law enforcement: military-style mass arrests. But if the ICE crackdown was intended to intimidate immigrant rights activists, it's having the opposite effect.

Smithfield workers demand "justicia"
Wildcat walkout in North Carolina
An estimated 1,000 workers walked off the job at a nonunion meatpacking plant in Tar Heel, N.C., after 75 employees were fired in a management attack on immigrants.

Right-wing lies about the protest at Columbia
Confronting the Minutemen
A protest against the anti-immigrant Minutemen at Columbia University in New York City has gained national attention after the media's attempt to slander supporters of immigrant rights.

"I'm part of the struggle for legalization"
Don't let them deport Elvira Arellano
Elvira Arellano's struggle against the federal government's attempt to deport her has become a national rallying point for the movement to defend the rights of immigrants.

Solidarity in the streets
In at least 153 cities and 39 states, and across the border in Latin America, millions of people turned out to demand justice on "un día sin inmigrantes"--a day without immigrants.

In the streets for immigrant rights
Making our voices heard
The streets of cities across the U.S. were filled on April 10 with supporters of immigrant rights--sending a message of proud defiance to the anti-immigrant politicians.

Immigrant rights fight comes to schools across the U.S.
Week of the walkouts
Student walkouts against anti-immigrant legislation spread across the country last week, setting a new fighting example in the fast-growing movement for immigrant rights.

A new movement for immigrant rights takes to the streets
"We want to be equal"
A sleeping giant awoke March 25 in Los Angeles as some 1 million people marched to protest anti-immigrant legislation that would make criminals out of tens of millions.

300,000 march for immigrant rights
"We're here and we're not leaving"
As many as 300,000 people took to the streets of Chicago March 10 to demonstrate for immigrant rights in one of the biggest protests in the city's history.

For legalization and workers' rights
Freedom ride for immigrant rights
Nearly 20 buses filled with 900 activists have fanned out across the U.S. in a Freedom Ride for immigrant workers' rights.

Freedom Riders speak out: Why we got on the bus

VOICES OF THE MOVEMENT

Nativo López on the politicians' immigration proposals:
"Enforcement-heavy and legalization-light"
The president of the Mexican American Political Association talks to SW about what's at stake for the immigrant rights movement as this year's May Day protests approach.

New questions facing immigrant rights activists
Debating next steps for the movement
Amid ramped-up federal raids and a raft of new anti-immigrant legislation at the state level, the immigrant rights movement is building grassroots emergency response networks.

Immigrant rights activists gather in Chicago
"A step toward organizing our side better"
Linking immigrant rights to organized labor, building grassroots organizations and opposing anti-immigrant legislation were the key themes of an organizing convention in Chicago.

Nativo López
What's next for the immigrant rights movement?

The president of the Mexican American Political Association spoke at a panel discussion about the future of the immigrant rights movement at the Socialism 2006 conference in New York City.

Nativo López on what's next in the struggle:
"You get what you're ready to fight for"
A leading organizer of the Great American Boycott talks about the rise of huge protests against anti-immigrant legislation and the future of the struggle.

Camilo Mejía: "It's the same system behind both injustices"
Antiwar vet Camilo Mejía talks about the connections between the fight against the war in Iraq and the new struggle for immigrant rights.

Undocumented and standing up for immigrant rights:
"I don't want others to suffer what I have"
An undocumented construction worker in Orange County, Calif., talks to SW about his experience coming to the U.S.

Immigrant workers take a stand:
"We're going to keep marching"
A Chicago organizer talks to SW about the central role of workers in the new immigrant-rights movement--and the national movement to skip work, march and protest on May 1.

Enrique Morones on the new movement to defend immigrants
"We are human beings"
Border Angels founder Enrique Morones talks to Socialist Worker about the spread of the struggle for immigrant rights.

California activist Renee Saucedo:
"They want to scapegoat immigrants"
The Minuteman Project's invasion of Arizona earlier this year to "patrol the border" is only the best-known front in the attack on immigrants taking place across the country.

THE ANTI-IMMIGRANT HYSTERIA

The flames reveal two San Diegos
Divided by fire
The Great Firestorm of 2007--which has displaced several hundred thousand people--has revealed deep fissures cutting through a place that calls itself "America's finest city."

Dead because of ICE neglect
Some 100 supporters of Victoria Arellano, a transgender woman who died after ICE officials denied her AIDS medicine, held a vigil and press conference in her memory.

Racists' mock lynching
Bigots spew their hate at LA mosque
More than 100 racists gathered across the street from the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, Calif., September 10 to perform a mock lynching.

"Respectable" politicians set the stage for the far right
Two faces of the anti-immigrant bigots
Plenty of politicians are willing to look the other way as their anti-immigrant supporters make common cause with the far right.

Growth of the Minuteklan
The far right is trying to make a comeback, and it is using anti-immigrant hate as its wedge issue.

The border crossed us...and other facts about immigration
Countering the right's myths and double standards
SW points out the hypocrisies and double standards of the U.S. ruling establishment's attitude toward immigrants through history.

Tancredo's long record of promoting right-wing causes
Leader of the crusade against immigrants
Tom Tancredo, a Republican member of Congress from Colorado has emerged as the champion of the anti-immigrant movement in Washington.

Racist network of right wingers
Far-right groups are trying to grow in Southern California by creating the illusion that their forces are strong and their ideas are legitimate and mainstream.

Schwarzenegger vetos immigrant drivers' licenses
Governor Scapegoater
Arnold Schwarzenegger showed his true anti-immigrant position when he vetoed legislation that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

IMMIGRATION, CAPITALISM AND AND U.S. POLITICS

Behind the debate over licenses for immigrants
In all the hoo-hah about Hillary Clinton's flip-flop on driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, something got lost--the issue of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Why was the DREAM Act defeated?
Senate immigrant bashers blocked a bill that would have allowed a path to citizenship for some undocumented youth. But the DREAM Act remains a topic of debate among activists.

Feds' no-match crackdown put on hold
A judge has left in place a court order blocking distribution of Social Security "no-match" letters that the federal government aimed to use as an immigration enforcement tool.

After the Senate immigration bill fails:
The challenges facing our movement
Renee Saucedo and Todd Chretien look at the challenges facing the immigrant rights movement following the defeat of the corporate-backed Senate immigration bill.

Compromising on justice for immigrants
This year's version of a Senate immigration compromise--no names attached to this one, please--makes last year's Hagel-Martinez appear humane by comparison.

What's wrong with the STRIVE immigration bill
The STRIVE Act put forward by Rep. Luis Gutiérrez is designed to be an offer the right can't refuse. The immigrant rights movement needs to separate the myths about STRIVE from the reality.

The ugly truth about guest-worker programs
A detailed study by the Southern Poverty Law Center has highlighted the stakes in the upcoming congressional debate over the vast expansion of guest-worker programs.

"ICE is stepping up its raids"
Why did the Feds try to tear a family apart?
During the week she was detained after an ICE raid on her workplace, Erica Jiménez had no contact with her 2-year-old son Henry or 4-month-old baby Briseidi.

"The government was sending a message"
Immigration raids terrorize Swift workers
Federal immigration agents stormed into six Swift and Co. meatpacking plants and pulled aside Latinos among the 13,000 workers.

Smithfield Foods' rotten record
In March, Smithfield Foods was named one of "America's Most Admired Companies" by Fortune magazine. For sure, Fortune didn't ask Smithfield workers for their opinion.

Undocumented workers face worst hazards on the job
Injured and cast aside
Going to work can be hazardous to your health--and for undocumented immigrants, the battle for justice when they are injured at work is even harder.

Endorsed by Senate Democrats
New stage in the crackdown on immigration
Five months after the massive May Day demonstrations, immigrants have come under fire--not only from conservative Republicans, but their supposed Democratic friends.

Feds okay firing of immigrant workers
Bosses take aim at the undocumented
Employers are using Social Security data to target and dismiss immigrant workers in view of proposed changes to government regulations.

Anti-immigrant "reform" legislation falls apart in Congress
Good riddance to a rotten deal
Immigration legislation in Congress--George W. Bush's top domestic priority--is all but dead, and that's great news for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the U.S.

Nigel Harris on border controls and state power today
The politics of immigration
A top author explains the role of immigration in world politics today--and the hope of a new wave of democratization.

The corporations that prey on the undocumented
Some of the biggest names in Corporate America have gone to great lengths to fill low-wage jobs with undocumented workers, turning to smuggling and forgery if necessary.

Hagel-Martinez immigration bill:
How can they call this justice?
The immigrant rights protests put the vicious Sensenbrenner bill on life support, but Hagel-Martinez represents a bipartisan effort to transplant its vital organs into a new body.

The case for amnesty
Justin Akers Chacon discusses the crucial issue missing from the mainstream political debate on immigration--genuine amnesty for undocumented workers.

THE WITCH-HUNT OF ARABS AND MUSLIMS

Hate week comes to campus
A veteran witch-hunter is behind a new round of Islamophobia coming to a campus near you in late October.

Politicians demonize Arabs and Muslims to justify their war
Making anti-Arab racism respectable
The demonization of Arabs and Muslims by politicians and the media is on the rise--with all too predictable results.

Politicians and the press bash Islam over anti-cartoon protests
The racist crusade against Muslims
The controversy over racist cartoons in a Danish newspaper has highlighted the scale of the Western assault on Islam as a justification for anti-immigrant scapegoating and imperialist war.

Why are two 16-year-old Muslim girls in a federal jail?
The U.S. government stooped to a new low in its witch-hunt of Muslims when federal agents detained two 16-year-old Muslim high school students from New York City.

Modern-day witch-hunt
The voices they want to silence
Since the September 11 attacks, the right wing has organized a concerted campaign to silence the voices of left-wing academics and activists.

Immigrant detainees face a nightmare
The disappeared
"Why am I imprisoned?...What are they accusing me of? Nobody knows." That was the desperate message written by one of America's disappeared--the men and women rounded up in John Ashcroft's September 11 investigation.

HISTORY AND POLITICS OF THE STRUGGLE

Battles ahead for immigrant rights
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights held its national conference with a weekend of education, debate and discussion.

Why an injury to one is an injury to all
The experience of an ICE raid in Georgia demonstrates that the blame for the downward spiral in workers' living standards lies with Corporate America, not immigrants.

The first May Day
The 19th-century struggle of a largely immigrant working class in the U.S. for the eight-hour day is honored by the international workers' holiday on May 1.

From mass immigrant rights marches to the vote against war
A year of gathering discontent
There is no predicting the shape of the struggles ahead. But with the U.S. ruling class increasingly divided, there's a growing sense that genuine change is needed.

Immigrant rights and Black politics
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor looks at why Black Democrats have been slow at best to embrace the rising movement for immigrant rights.

"The border crossed us"
"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." This slogan of the immigrant rights movement expresses a historical fact--that much of the Western U.S. was once part of Mexico.

America's last guest worker program:
A system designed for maximum exploitation
The history of the last major guest-worker program in the U.S.--the bracero program, from 1942 to 1964--shows that the reality of such a system is different from the rhetoric.

Mike Davis on the Los Angeles Rebellion:
"A generation found that it can fight back"
Rodney King was a lightning rod for the accumulated grievances of youth on the streets of LA who've only known a constant regime of brutality from the LAPD.

A battle over immigration
Controversy in the Sierra Club
The environmental group The Sierra Club is facing a raucous showdown over who will lead the 750,000-member organization.

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