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“The Politics of Immigration Questions and Answers,” by Jane Gustin
and David L. Wilson. Monthly Review Press, 2007.
This
book is the stuff of hard-core immigration activists. It’s
pro-immigrant rights, no apologies. Their side was in the streets in
May 2006, when millions of immigrants and their supporters demonstrated
for citizenship rights, an end to raids and deportations.
Written
by two veteran New York City activists who have spent years on the
frontlines of immigration issues, the book takes on today’s racist
myths one by one. You want the facts? Here they are.
Moreover,
this book is a terrific primer for people who are just confused by
immigrant bashing politicians in both parties and need to know more.
Much of the information presented in the book’s 141 pages has been
available before, but never in such a concise, comprehensive form.
Not
a guide for solving individual immigration problems—that’s another kind
of book—this one answers the big questions: What are the causes of
immigration? Are immigrants an
economic or even a “terrorist” threat? What is the truth about
so-called guest worker and amnesty proposals debated in Congress? How
can the labor movement meet the challenges in today’s anti-immigrant
climate?
Co-author
David Wilson believes that people will listen to the truth on
immigration, particularly working people. Wilson put it this way to
Socialist Action: “The media has set it up so that you feel that
everybody is anti-immigrant. But you find that people are very
receptive to talking about it rationally. Because of people like Lou Dobbs, you feel scared to say
immigrants have a side.
“But,
its just like Iraq. Everybody was supposed to have supported the war,
but when you talked to people in the street you quickly found out that
most people were against it.”
The
authors show that today’s immigrant bashers base their case, as always,
on half-truths and old-fashioned racism. Some facts that I found useful
in the book include:
•
At 12.8%, the proportion of immigrants in the population as of 2004 is
about the same as it has been for most of U.S. history.
•
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade
Organization policies, more than 1.5 million Mexican farmers have lost
their sources of income and have been forced to sell or abandon their
farms. Under these U.S.-supported neo-liberal (so-called free trade)
policies, the real purchasing power of the Mexican minimum wage fell by
more than two-thirds from 1980 to 1996.
•
A National Academy of Sciences study found that in the long run,
immigrants and their children more than make up for what little they
may receive in services.
“Ilegal” or out-of-status workers and their employers contribute
up to $7 billion in Social Security taxes, some 10% of the total, and
about $1.5 billion in Medicaid taxes each year. Few receive back what
they contribute.
•
Fully 71% of all immigrants are naturalized citizens or legal residents
and pay all the same taxes as U.S. citizens. The remaining 29% pay most
of what everyone else does, but are denied many public services.
So-called illegal alien adults are not eligible for welfare.
•
Many immigration waves stem from U.S. support to Third World elites.
U.S.-backed death-squad governments, such as in El Salvador, and
dictatorships in Haiti, resulted in large-scale immigration.
•
Historically, U.S. immigration policies were race based. In 1870,
Chinese immigrants were barred from becoming citizens. In 1913,
Japanese immigrants were prohibited from owning land in California. Out
of 22,940 Haitian refugees intercepted at sea during the U.S.-backed
Duvalier family dictatorships (1971-1986) and an interim regime, only a
handful of political asylum requests were granted.
•
The authors show that all workers gain when labor unites to organize
the unorganized, both legal and illegal.
Authors
Gustin and Wilson dig deep to explain the current anti-immigrant mood.
The authors’ political perspective allows them to make the necessary
links between immigration and a foreign policy based on super-profits,
racism, imperialism and war.
They make the radical case for an “open borders” policy and
explain why.
Both
authors were tireless workers in the defense case of Farouk
Abdel-Muhti, a New York City-based Palestinian born activist. The case
laid bare the reality behind the racist post-9/11 dragnet against Palestinians, Arabs and Central
Asians. Abdel-Muhti was seized in April 2002 by U.S. authorities in the
middle of the night and imprisoned without criminal charges. While in
jail, he was repeatedly beaten by guards and denied proper health care,
which contributed to his tragic death soon after winning his freedom in
2004.
Since
1990, Gustin and Wilson have been producing the “Weekly News Update on
the Americas,” an irreplaceable source of information on struggles in
Latin America and the Caribbean, and “Immigration News Briefs.” In 1997
Guskin and Wilson helped found the Coalition for the Human Rights of
Immigrants, an all-volunteer NYC group mobilizing against workplace
raids.
In
1988, Gustin traveled to Nicaragua and soon became involved in the fight
to end the US war in Central America. She is the program director at
the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, which supports nonviolent activism
for social justice, where she has worked since 1993.
Wilson
has been active in the NY Nicaragua Network for the past 20 years,
participated in several anti-sweatshop campaigns and actively opposed
U.S./U.N. occupations of Haiti.
Gustin
and Wilson are both available to give workshops on immigration. To
reach them write to thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.org.
To purchase the book, see www.thepoliticsofimmigration.org.
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