Workers of the World, Unite
Since the early 1970’s, the capitalist oligarchs at the head of the world’s largest corporations have significantly changed the character of the world’s economy. After two world wars that pitted one nation’s capitalists against another’s, they scuttled their system of protected national and colonial markets (as in the British Empire). Leaving their colonies in the [...]
Border brutality
Video: Need to Know, April 20, 2012: Crossing the line | Need to Know | PBS Fifteen years ago on May 20, Esequiel Hernandez, a young goat herder tending to his family’s livestock, was shot and killed by a platoon of U.S. Marines on a drug interdiction covert operation along the Redford, Texas border with [...]
Immigrant rights activists rally to block a ‘Guantanamo in the cornfields’
CRETE, ILLINOIS — More than 200 supporters of immigrant rights marched on Palm Sunday to the site of a proposed for-profit immigrant detention center in the small village south of Chicago. Local activists and area residents were joined by a coalition of Chicago-based organizations who set out on foot Friday, March 30, from Our Lady [...]
‘Beyond Borders’
Hanging on the hated wall between Mexico and the U.S., David Bacon’s photographs may help bring it down. Eighteen big blowups of migration photographs by California photographer David Bacon now hang on the border wall next to the gate between Mexicali, in Mexico, and Calexico, in the United States. They hang next to the traffic [...]
‘The Vision of the Artist Should Be to Change the World’
David Bacon’s migrant-worker photos on the border wall are part of a long tradition of documentary photography as a tool in social struggle. “They’re a call to action; they’re not just documenting reality,” he told the Tribuno del Pueblo. He cites an iconic 1930s photograph taken on the San Francisco waterfront showing longshoremen in the [...]
Detroit: To the streets!
To our immigrant community here in Detroit, I think it’s important to get out into the streets to fight for better living conditions for all, to stop the deportations and raids that separate our families. As immigrants, regardless of legal status, we have the right to be treated like human beings, with all of our [...]
Alabama: Unity for Voting and Immigrant Rights
Thousands of people held a reenactment walk during March to commemorate the historic 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery that culminated with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Participants came from all parts of the country for this 2012 commemoration and marched in a show of unity under banners that called for [...]
Immigration in 2012
The roots of the problem and its solution The immigration issue — the exploitation and mistreatment of millions of undocumented migrants and their families in the U.S. – has sparked much confusion and fear. It has also called some to protest, march, and to speak out for what is moral. Backed by the capitalist class [...]
No more “Year of the Checkpoint”
At the New Year, many working people in California, particularly Latinos heaved a collective sigh of relief as a law, which will reduce unconstitutional vehicle checkpoint searches. The 4th Amendment of the US Constitution provides in part, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches [...]
Immigration raids: It happened on Friday the 13th
With well over 1,000,000 deporations of Mexicans since taking office, the Obama administration has nearly doubled the number of ‘immigration enforcements’ conducted during the Bush Era. A ruthless feat, nearly surpassing the Hoover Administration’s forced “repatriation” during the Great Depression, that sent over 1.2 million Mexicans, many who were US-Born citizens and didn’t speak Spanish, [...]
“Don’t Get Angry, Get Even” When Do You Start Counting
When the great Muhammad Ali was asked how many sit ups he did, he responded, “I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, that is when I start counting, because then it really counts, that’s what makes you a champion.” These words resonate in Tucson where Latina/o students are fighting [...]
Greetins from occupy Wall Street N.Y. to all immigrants
The Occupy Wall Street NY General Assembly officially approved to demand the legalization of all undocumented. It asked the TP to send a greeting of solidarity to all the students who participated in the fight to approve the Dream Act. It also asked us to send a greeting to the millions of day laborers on [...]
All people in the U.S. must resist E-verify
The newly created E-Verify program forces employers not only to help the US government track undocumented workers but to track all workers and report them to the government — US citizens, people of every nationality. The E-Verify program — so far voluntary — encourages employers to use an Internet connection to the US government immediately [...]
Guest Worker Program: Modern Day Slavery
New proposed laws raise the threat level to immigrant workers. Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican from Texas, has introduced bills that would change the situation from bad to worse. In mid- September the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on a 22 to 13 vote, passed the “Legal Workforce Act” or the H.R. 2885. This bill was first [...]
Rosalinda Guillen: Farm Workers Justice and the Food Sovereignty Movement
Rosalinda Guillen is a widely recognized farm worker and rural justice leader in the state of Washington. The oldest of eight, she was born in Texas and spent her first decade in Coahuila, Mexico. Her family emigrated to LaConner, Washington in 1960, and she began working as a farm worker in the fields in Skagit [...]
Immigration struggles – a critical front in the movement for equality and justice
The immigration struggle moved into high gear last year with the passage of Arizona law SB 1070 and the threat of copycat laws across the nation, especially in the South, along with the failure of the US government to pass immigration reform and the Dream Act. SB 1070 swelled the wave of criminalization of immigrant [...]
Rhode Islanders Take a Stand Against Georgia Law and ‘Secure Communities’
On July 1, organizations in Providence, R.I. hung four large banners from bridges over a heavily driven section of I-95 through the city’s downtown. The banners had a series of messages supporting immigrant rights. “The messages [demonstrate] solidarity with the people of Georgia . . . and declare that Rhode Island should not follow the [...]
Landlords Evicting Illegally
In Sonoma County and elsewhere in California, some are taking the law into their own hands. More and more, landlords in Sonoma County, Calif., are taking the law into their own hands in evicting Latino tenants — changing their locks, cutting off their utilities, removing their belongings, or shoving their way in and starting “renovations.” [...]
Where we’re headed
Immigrant rights advocates have become an assortment of strange bedfellows. Politicians, police chiefs, businesses and unions, religious, community and civil-rights organizations, all these are finding themselves in the same side. In this mixture of some good and some very strange company, revolutionaries need to figure out what should be our guiding light. Nationally, powerful economic [...]
E-Verify Attacks all workers
More anti-immigrant legislation introduced in Congress. It’s purpose – to divide and conquer In June, Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican from Texas, and 53 cosigners introduced the toughest antiimmigrant legislation in more than two centuries in Congress. Known as the “Legal Workforce Act” or H.R. 2164, this legislation, if it becomes law, will force every single [...]