Immigrants
"The World Can’t Wait organizes people living in the United States to repudiate and stop the fascist direction initiated by the Bush Regime, including: the murderous, unjust and illegitimate occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; the global “war of terror” of torture, rendition and spying; and the culture of bigotry, intolerance and greed."
-from World Can't Wait's mission statement adopted 2009
Included within the fascist direction that we work to reverse is the "culture of bigotry, intolerance and greed." Here we answer some frequently asked questions on our support for immigrant rights:
Doesn't "illegal" mean illegal?
No human being can be illegal. Laws change and can be just or unjust, and we are not bound by whatever is "on the books" at any given moment. Torture has been legalized, but we will not stop protesting and resisting this crime against humanity until torture stops being carried out in our names. Would the invasion of Iraq be any more acceptable if it was technically legal? While slavery is now illegal, it was once the law of the land. It is unethical to silence our opposition to discrimination against immigrants, documented or undocumented, because of whatever laws are instituted.
Why are you opposed to Arizona's new law, SB1070?
This law is a serious step in a fascist direction, and differs from all other state laws. It states that law enforcement must ask for proof of citizenship or residency from anyone they "suspect" is illegal. This means racial profiling on a massive scale, as anyone brown-skinned can expect to be questioned and potentially detained any time they leave the house. This law discriminates against all Latinos; but even worse, further isolates and marginalizes undocumented immigrants who live in fear of being suddenly separated from their families, imprisoned, and deported. For more read Arizona's anti-Immigrant Law is Inhumane & Illegitimate. However, Arizona is not the only problem. For an idea of the suffering imposed on immigrants detained in other parts of the US by the federal government, see Letters from an Immigrant Detainee.
But don't illegal immigrants drive down wages, drain the economy and social services?
These are the main talking points which have snookered people. However, they are factually untrue. In fact, there is no correlation between wages going down and immigrants. In addition, immigrants have contributed billions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare, without ever hoping to draw these benefits themselves. Their input has even been factored into government budgets - budgets which, by design, require their input without benefit in order to work! See the New York Times: Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
and Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye
But if that's not true, why do I hear it so often? How could so many people be wrong?
Well, have you ever heard the term "scapegoating?" There's no denying the global economy is seriously unsteady and people are being affected by it in the US. But that is what you have to look at: the global economy. Recent immigration from Mexico, for instance, cannot be separated from the effect that NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) has had on Mexico's industry and agriculture (Download Oxfam report). Markets flooded with US-subsidized corn imports have driven many Mexican farmers out of business and off their land, while factories once set up by US corporations have closed down in search of even cheaper labor in China or other places in Asia. The economic forces affecting people's livelihoods, whether here or in other parts of the world, are guided by profitability and greed, not by immigrants seeking a better life for themselves or their families through low-paying jobs here.
"If the immigrant pickers did not come north across the border, the strawberries would."
-from the New York Times
You have to look deeper to discover what is really at work here. Protesters marching in Arizona recently carried a banner that said: “There is no problem with immigration; there is a problem with capitalism."
I.C.E.: Covering up the Deaths of Immigrants
- Category: Immigrants
Conditions in ICE Detention Centers... A Death Sentence For Over 100 Immigrants
- Category: Immigrants
From the website Revolution
The number of undocumented immigrants who are detained by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has tripled since 2001. This year ICE is on a pace to imprison approximately 440,000 immigrants.
New Documentary: The Border Wall
- Category: Immigrants
By Larry Jones
President Barack Obama is committed to retaining the wall along the Mexican border which George W. Bush brought into being. It is a huge wall where the border is adjacent to an urban
No accurate account of the number of people who have died trying to cross the border so they could work is available because such counts never include the bodies which were never found. Anti-immigrant politicians and right wing private groups want a law that would punish the humanitarians who leave scores of gallon containers of water for immigrants in the desert. Will Obama’s head of immigration as part of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano fix this? Not likely. When she was governor of
A new film by Richard Martinez called “The Wall Documentary”, which shows both the development of this wall during the Bush years and the growth of opposition to it in cities and towns along the border, is premiering this week in San Antonio and McAllen Texas. Check out this video clip regarding a documentary about the wall.
Chemical Weapons on the U.S. /Mexico Border?”
- Category: Immigrants
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refused to consider a case by pursued by Vietnamese plaintiffs against the manufacturers of Agent Orange.Thousands Protest Immigration Raids in Phoenix
- Category: Immigrants
by Tim Gaynor
Phoenix area where they stop people and arrest anyone who cannot prove he or she is a legal U.S. resident. Under a deal allowing them to enforce federal immigration laws, the deputies have arrested more than 1,500 people whom they determined were in Arizona illegally.Gross Violations of Immigrants’ Rights: Obama Administration Continues Harsh Attacks
- Category: Immigrants
By Larry Jones
The infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio last week made a shocking spectacle by marching 120 undocumented immigrants in striped prison suites and chains through the streets of Maricopa County.
“Not only was this inhumane, but violated international human rights principles — not to mention 
American values — that require us to treat people who are incarcerated with dignity and respect,” said the ACLU. “But Sheriff Arpaio has absolute contempt for the dignity of the people in his custody and demonstrates this by treating people like circus animals.”
ICE Duplicity
Several years ago the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) told Congress that it was going to concentrate on rounding up the most dangerous undocumented immigrants – those who were criminals or terrorism suspects. But on February 4, the NY Times reported that newly available reports revealed that the agency had changed the rules in the middle of the game and had begun going after easier targets. “A vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them, either,” wrote Nina Bernstein of the Times.
Anti-Immigrant Program in Obama's Stimulus Plan
- Category: Immigrants
By Larry Jones
U.S. HAS PLAN FOR MILITARY SURGE AT BORDER
- Category: Immigrants
By Larry Jones
The “spillover” Chertoff refers to is a possible overflow of the violent Mexican drug wars. But while the horrors of the Mexican drug wars are a dangerous reality, such a military force could also be easily used against Mexicans and others seeking to enter the U.S. to find a job to support their families.
Cheney, Gonzalez Indicted in South Texas
- Category: Immigrants
County, Texas, on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity. The indictment also charges Cheney with "profiteering from depriving human beings of their liberty". The charges stem from the involvement of Cheney and Gonzalez in a firm called the Vanguard Group, which has invested heavily in the "growth industry" of private prisons, and in particular in a prison for immigrants run privately on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) near Raymondville Texas. The indictments have yet to be signed by a presiding judge, and no action can be taken against either Cheney or Gonzalez until that happens.
Immigrants