The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is the 12,000-member-strong organization of immigration lawyers. Several friends of PLP have been participating for several years in local chapters and at the national conventions, working in a mass professional organization which is led by liberals in the ruling class.
At the 2011 AILA convention, thousands of immigration lawyers were suckered by Obama’s top immigration cop’s announcement that his Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and attorneys would use “prosecutorial discretion” to stop deportations of non-criminals. Instead, racist round-ups and deportations increased to its highest level yet. Prosecutorial discretion meant that the ICE might be nice in a few instances, but that fascist attacks on immigrants would get worse.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the AILA welcomed prosecutorial discretion and convinced themselves that taking whatever crumbs the government gives is better than fighting back harder against racism. These leaders let Obama publicize his new policies from their convention. Now, after a year of “prosecutorial discretion,” it is clear that asking Obama to use more “discretion,” means pretending to fight but really just begging for mercy.
This year the same thing is happening again. During the 2012 AILA convention, Obama announced “prosecutorial discretion” to give “deferred action” to younger immigrants. (See next issue) “Deferred action” means postponed deportation.
Once again, the immigration lawyers’ leaders are acting as if it is a gift from god. But the promise of “deferred action” is dangerous. The young immigrants will have to identify themselves (endangering their relations) and pass a security clearance. Even then, they will only receive a letter saying the government won’t try to deport them right away and a work permit for two years. If things work out, they will have a “chance” to join the army and fight in the Middle East. No one knows what will happen if Romney gets elected or if Obama changes his mind. No legal residence or citizenship is included, or even mentioned in the new proposal. The government can still deport each applicant and their families whenever it chooses!
At this year’s convention, the sellout past president offered an “open forum” promising urgent discussion on how to combat anti-immigrant legislation in states like Alabama and Arizona. Not surprisingly, the audience microphones were turned off and no questions were allowed. The main guest speaker was the racist attorney general of Utah, who demanded that the audience write letters to congressmen, organize “lobby” days at state capitols and ask big business to help immigrants, the same useless tools that haven’t worked for years. The Utah attorney general bragged that his state’s law is “anti-immigrant lite.”
Meanwhile, two speakers from community activist organizations didn’t show up, possibly because they were uninvited by the organizers. Later, at a general membership meeting, one attorney demanded that the microphones be turned on in the sessions and that open discussion be permitted, instead of just increasingly top-down dominance by leaders whose only answer is voting.
This year, after years of struggle in the organization, many immigration lawyers protested their leaders’ kiss-up approach to the Obama administration. One group voted to demand that the leaders stop begging for crumbs and start fighting harder for better laws.
But fighting for “better” capitalist laws instead of crumbs like prosecutorial discretion cannot help in the long run. This is because the world economic crisis means that the United States and each of its international competitors are fighting each other in a downward spiral in which all workers suffer more, racism increases and the capitalist system can’t easily pretend that the government is there to help the people. Liberal misleaders must promise improvements, even as things get worse and people see the truth.
This problem for the rulers was evident in the speeches of the sellout convention leaders. The president-elect admitted her shock that “prosecutorial discretion” increased deportations. She admitted that she was “speechless” and “couldn’t explain it” and that “prosecutorial discretion” had turned out to be an “empty promise.” She was frozen in her role as sellout liberal leader, like a deer caught in the headlights, because she admitted spending months “giving ICE (the immigration police) a chance” to make prosecutorial discretion help immigrants. But Obama used it to do the opposite. She claimed that Obama would “really really keep his promise” with the new deferred action policy despite his racist lies about prosecutorial discretion throughout last year.
This is important for our class because it shows the weakness and fear that liberal leaders have when their pathetic begging approach cannot deliver. Hundreds of immigration lawyers and millions of immigrants now see that immigration law in the Obama era is filled with empty promises. The so-called “liberal” system can be exposed for what it is — an increasingly fascist engine to increase the threat of deportations and force everyone to work for less, with the undocumented at the bottom.
As workers come to understand this, these liberal leaders can be rejected. Immigrants’ and citizens’ unity can battle the development of fascism now by mass protesting in the immigration courts, at the detention centers and at the border, in a movement which has the revolutionary destruction of capitalism and its politicians as its goal and the creation of an anti-racist, sharing communist society as the result.
The revolutionary alternative is important to consider right now, because the other alternative is clear: voting or begging the bosses to make their cops be nicer is like asking your prison guard to treat you better in the death camp. If you think it might happen, you may have already lost the fight.
Making AILA fight harder and avoid liberal traps is a long, hard job. The rulers are presently in almost complete control of the organization. One of our weaknesses has been lack of regular work in local chapters to bring more of our political ideas to the members and bring those members closer to PLP. Increasing activity on the chapter level will involve more members in discussing how liberal reformist leadership helped the Obama administration make things worse for immigrants this past year.
Countries’ borders are born in capitalist wars with no regard to workers’ interests. Whichever capitalist army is stronger decides where the border is. Workers are an international class. We have no borders.PLP's communist answer to the bosses' exploitation of immigrant workers and all workers is: smash all borders!