Immigration Reform: Dead End for Workers

Under capitalism, immigrants are exploited for super-profits and demonized by the bosses in a relentless effort to divide the working class. Unitarians from across the country are congregating in Phoenix from June 20 to June 24 to stand in solidarity with immigrant workers and oppose Arizona’s racist, anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. Despite President Obama’s announcement (see page 2) to suspend deportations for a limited group of students and workers, many Unitarians understand that immigrants will remain under attack in Arizona and elsewhere as long as our society is geared to create profit for the few at the expense of the rest of us.  

Obama’s cynical election-year ploy will allow an estimated 800,000 undocumented immigrants under the age of 31 to obtain driver’s licenses and renewable two-year work permits, but only if they came to the U.S. before they turned 16 and are in school or have a high school diploma or GED.

It does nothing for the 11.2 million remaining undocumented workers in the U.S. who fail to meet these criteria, including the children and youth who have been failed by the bosses’ decaying education system. (According to recent U.S. Census data, 41 percent of Mexican immigrant teenagers in New York City — with or without papers — have dropped out of school.) Even for the relative few who may benefit under the changed policy, there is no path to citizenship or permanent residency. 

Obama: Immigrants’ False Friend

After campaigning as a champion of immigration rights, Obama has escalated racist attacks against the undocumented. His administration has installed more border agents and more fencing between the U.S. and Mexico. Since taking power in 2009, it has deported 1.4 million people — a record 400,000 per year, double the rate under Republican George W. Bush. Families have been ripped apart in midnight raids; dozens of immigrants have died from abuse and neglect in detention centers controlled by the brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

While this reign of terror has met the bosses’ need to intimidate workers who provide cheap labor, it angered Latinos who voted for Obama in the last election under the illusion that a liberal Democrat would serve their needs.  The “bluntly political move” (NYT, 6/16/12) to suspend some deportations may help Obama win pivotal states like Florida and Colorado in his election race against Republican Mitt Romney. 

The new policy is also a significant step toward the passage of “comprehensive immigration reform” (CIR), a bipartisan campaign that is backed by the Unitarian Universalist Association. CIR plays into the hands of finance capital, the section of the U.S. ruling class that is most committed to maintaining and expanding U.S. global supremacy. It is a losing proposition for immigrants — and for all workers.

In addition to creating a slave-labor force of “guest workers,” CIR includes the Dream Act, a bipartisan proposal to offer two routes to legalization: full-time college attendance leading to graduation (with no work permitted), or enlistment in the military. Since few undocumented youths have the means to be full-time college students for three or four years running, the Dream Act would effectively funnel young immigrants into the military to fight the bosses’ imperialist wars. 

In 2006, the rulers used their loyal stooges in the unions and the Democratic Party to build a popular movement for CIR, including demonstrations by millions in the streets. After the stock market crash and the end of the housing bubble, and the waves of layoffs that followed, the immigration reform movement retreated. The Dream Act was shelved.

Republican Party opposition reflected the thinking of some capitalists who wanted to build gutter racism and blame immigrants for the economic crisis. But finance capital’s first priority is to stave off the challenge of rising imperialist powers like China, and to expand the U.S. military and build workers’ allegiance for the broader imperialist conflicts to come.

As Obama noted last week, the new limited deportation policy is aimed at “talented, driven, patriotic young people….These are young people who pledge allegiance to our flag” (Washington Post, 6/15/12). 

Global Scapegoats

The oppression of immigrants is a global phenomenon. Find a capitalist country in economic crisis, and you will find a surge in anti-immigrant racism. It targets Africans in France, Roma people in Italy, Turks in Germany, Latin Americans in Spain, Muslims in Holland, Poles in Ireland, Indians in Singapore. Immigrants are scapegoated for the mass unemployment that stems from the boom-and-bust chaos of capitalism. They are labeled as parasites and accused of taking benefits without “deserving” them or contributing to society.

In reality, as studies have repeatedly shown, immigrants take the dirtiest, most difficult, and most dangerous jobs that would otherwise go unfilled. They pay taxes for benefits they are ineligible to receive. Their reward is to be attacked by racist scum like the Minutemen in the U.S., the Freedom Party in Germany, and the National Front in France.

Like capital, workers have no borders. The North America Free Trade Agreement and other treaties enable U.S. exports like corn to flow freely across borders and destroy local economies in other countries. These ruling-class pacts have forced millions of workers to uproot themselves and come to the U.S. to feed themselves and their families. At the same time, tens of thousands of jobs in auto and other industries have migrated from cities in the Midwest to Latin America, Asia, and right-to-work (non-union) states in the South.

These developments were created by capitalism, with its inherent need to maximize profits by driving down labor costs and creating unemployment throughout the world. Capitalism is the only reason why hundreds of millions who want to work cannot find it.

PLP Fights In Immigrant Workers’ Struggles

The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party has a proud history of participation and leadership in immigrant workers’ struggles, from the Hormel strike in Minnesota to organizing garment worker shops in Los Angeles. But the ultimate victory can come only from a communist revolution. PLP’s solution is to overthrow capitalism and fight for a world without exploitation, racism, sexism or nationalism. Attacks against immigrants will end only when we have a world without borders, run by and for the international working class. That’s what PLP is fighting for. Join us!