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April 22, 2006
MIM and its circles have been among the few groups anywhere to have spoken of an "anti-migrant movement," "anti-migrant repression," "anti-migrant vigilantes," and so on. The key word is "migrant."
Looking back at statements MIM has made over the past several months, it seems that perhaps the point has not been driven home hard enough. Yes, MIM has been critical of white nationalists who have tried to distance themselves from the Minutemen as way of putting forward their own reactionary proposals. The idea of the Minutemen, one of the ugliest expressions of the anti-migrant movement, having mainstream support took people by surprise. It's been several months since then and the massive popularity of the anti-migrant movement among the U.$. population, and the dominator Euro-Amerikan nation in particular, still draws little comment. What we're hearing today, with regard to migrants' rights demonstrations, is just "where are the whites." But that's another story.
MIM has come down hard on white nationalism and its various manifestations in the struggle against anti-migrant repression. But there is a reactionary trend within white nationalism that deserves further attention. Certain elements are calling for "full legalization for all immigrants" as if that were a maximum demand, some kind of radical proposal. A variation on the slogan is "full citizenship rights." "Immediate." "Unconditional." The rhetoric aspires to be powerful, though it reflects a mistaken view of what is fundamentally driving this debate. Although reactionaries have jumped on these slogans as usual, it is really important to understand that a slogan like "full citizenship rights for all immigrants," or worse, "full citizenship rights for all immigrant workers" but not other migrants, is highly problematic. Such slogans are troubling when there are no simultaneous calls for open borders.
The first thing to notice is that not all migrants want to stay in the United $tates. Even among oppressed-nation migrants who become permanent residents or citizens, a significant number want to return home eventually. Making citizenship available to undocumented migrants in and of itself is a winnable and desirable reform under the present social and political system. However, such a reform must not be an excuse to perpetuate the repression of other migrants or abandoning migrants who don't want to become citizens. Many of those calling for unconditional legalization also support increasing border repression.
Underlying some calls for legalization is an ugly chauvinism, concealed behind friendly language but nonetheless present. One statement of a certain coalition group, proclaiming leadership of some demonstrations, reads:
"The schemes being debated in Congress only aim to either criminalize the undocumented and by extension all immigrants, or to provide an extremely limited possibility for undocumented workers to be able to live, work and remain in the country they have adopted as their own."
Implicit in this statement is the idea that migrants leave their families and communities and come to the United $tates because they love Amerika, not because they are negotiating their situation under the imperialist economy and system.
People in love with imperialism are going to pounce on MIM for pointing this out and acknowledging the grain of truth in what reactionaries are saying about not all migrants wanting to assimilate into Amerikan society completely. But it must be said. Some demonstrators want to prove the worth and loyalty of migrants to the oppressor nation, but a communist party must take a scientific approach.
MIM's critics on this point simply surrender the struggle that needs to happen with the Euro-Amerikan nation to recognize and learn to live with other nations. There is nothing wrong with a people wanting to live apart from the Euro-Amerikan nation. An oppressed nation does not have to be measured against Euro-Amerikan standards--or more likely, Euro-Amerikan double standards given what it says on the Statue of Liberty. The desire to have separate national identities from the Euro-Amerikan nation while living on the territory stolen from Mexico and First Nations is in fact correct. It is our critics speaking as the voice of super-profits and integrated global pillage. People waving the Mexican flag should go on waving the Mexican flag and bring out the contradiction between the oppressor nation and the oppressed. So-called leftists are the verbal shoehorn taking advantage of repression and super-profits to force oppressed nations to fit into the imperial schema. The white Liberals should offer to let migrants fit in their Liberal world, but we communists should also fight for national self-determination.
In an ideal world, "full citizenship rights" would mean getting rid of the repression and exclusion that creates different classes of citizens, second-class citizens, third-class, etc. But within the logic of the moment, it just means offering naturalization to undocumented migrants, and only a subgroup of them at that.
Many of those calling only for legalization for workers are simultaneously opposing every temporary-worker proposal as a new bracero program. This is a dangerous combination that threatens to exclude migrants who don't want to naturalize or even become permanent residents. Open borders would be better than border repression subject to the whim of the imperialists and the labor aristocracy, but that is not on the table in the legislative debate. Thus, "citizenship rights for immigrants" subtly colludes with attempts to strike a deal with imperialism and legalize undocumented migrants in the United $tates at the expense of shutting out other Third World workers.
No "legalization-only" bill has been put forth. Any proposed legalization provision comes packaged with more anti-migrant repression. Still, we can imagine such a thing standing next to enforcement-only bills in the minds of those calling for unconditional legalization for undocumented migrants. Superficially, legalization-only legislation sounds better than enforcement-only legislation, but both are confined to a legalistic discourse that ultimately accepts the legitimacy of imperialist borders and of anti-migrant repression.
The anti-migrant movement does not target just migrants and their communities in the United $tates. The anti-migrant movement affects proletarians and oppressed nations outside the United $tates, too. The anti-migrant movement is hostile to the self-determination of oppressed nations inside and outside the United $tates, not just opposed to their inclusion in Amerikan society and their civil and political rights under the imperialist state. Self-determination is needed, not just imperialist citizenship rights with a promise of legal, parasitic U.$. wages, unavailable to the majority of the world's workers.
As a name for demonstrations in response to the anti-migrant movement, "civil rights movement" is therefore somewhat misplaced despite its relevance to migrants and their families in the United $tates. "Anti-imperialist movement" wouldn't be an accurate description either -- the demonstrations are not that developed yet -- but the demonstrations are in response to a wave of attacks against proletarian workers and oppressed nationalities, not just those already in the United $tates.
Those who insist (against all evidence about what is actually on the table in the legislative debate) that full, immediate legalization is possible within the coming months, but stop short of opposing U.$. borders, are pursuing a path that will create more division among the oppressed along the lines of imperialist borders. Why support unconditional legalization, but not open borders? This is unacceptable and represents a bourgeois viewpoint. It is also confluent with the demands of legal U.$. workers who mistakenly believe that the exploitation of Third World workers drives down U.$. wages when in fact such exploitation increases them. These legal U.$. workers are fundamentally driven by a white hysteria and reject every temporary-worker program, sometimes in lockstep with those denouncing anything that looks like an amnesty.
If one were to take away the temporary-worker provisions of the Hegel-Martinez Substitute (limited as they are), what would be left is a bill that offers naturalization to only those undocumented migrants who are willing to continue working in the United $tates for another six years. In other words, undocumented migrants who don't want to stay that long will continue to be repressed.
And those migrants who want to apply for legalization must have been employed for at least three years before April 2006, bringing the total to nine years. This excludes a huge number of undocumented migrants.
This is the legislation that the American Immigration Lawyers Association has called "comprehensive," a "missed opportunity for America to begin to fix its broken immigration system," a "bipartisan bill that showed so much promise," a "workable compromise." AILA has been called "progressive" by some, but it is just another player in the so-called immigration reform debate, actually a strategic planning discussion for how to increase the repression of migrants in an effective way.
To suggest that the Hegel-Martinez Substitute, minus its temporary-worker provisions, is a solution to the "broken immigration system" is well-intentioned, but naive and neglectful, at best, and a deliberate attempt to force migrants into assimilating, and shutting out and repressing many other migrants, at worst.
Among other things, the Hegel-Martinez amendment, like Arlen Specter and the Senate Judiciary Committee's bill, would create a high-tech virtual fence along U.$. borders and help local law enforcement agencies turn over undocumented migrants to the federal government.
Bu$h's "guest worker" proposal comes packaged with more anti-migrant repression. Bu$h's anti-migrant critics, who feel he is being too soft on migrants, are so reactionary that some of his proposals may seem tolerable in comparison. But this whole "immigration reform debate" is reactionary.
Rather than try to turn migrant rights demonstrations into something fit for a naturalization drive or voter-registration drive, people must go on the offensive and oppose the racism, white supremacy and nationalism, and settler mentality, underlying this anti-migrant movement. Repressive policies, such as more border fencing near urban areas, that would only lead to more deaths must also be opposed.
The immigration system isn't broken -- that is just a white-nationalist framing of this issue. The problem that needs fixing is the imperialist system and its repressive apparatuses. Ultimately, nothing short of revolution and open borders will solve this problem.