[Marxism] A Million Immigrant March for 5/1-3 2008

[Mike Friedman]

5/1-3 2008 Washington DC: Calling for La Gran Marcha Nacional 2008, "A
Million Immigrant March"


For more info Contact Jesse Díaz, Jr.
213.725.1714
granmarchanacional2008 at gmail.com


Compañeros y Compañeras:

November 05, 2007



Working collectively with our fellow actors in the Movimiento we have
realized drastic actions with tangible results.   Last year we marched and
buried HR4437, we boycotted and shut down the Empire for 24 hours by
flexing our labor and consumer power and killed S2611, or as some of us
called it "Sensenbrenner light," and we voted and changed the face of
Congress.   Still, there is no legalization proposal on the horizon, ICE
continues to raid our communities, and local elected officials are
attempting to pass draconian measures targeting the livelihood of our
people like in Phoenix, AZ.   We have reached a point in the Movimiento
for renewed collective measures to push forward the current campaign for
immigration reform.   We can't and won't wait until after the presidential
elections! We must centralize our efforts and make our voices heard loud
and clear across the country next year.

We have been nothing but short-changed, back stabbed, and sold out by this
Congress, and most specifically, by even our own in it who have continued
to call for enforcement before legalization.   Congress rationalized
passing legislation to construct the wall of shame as a first step to
immigration reform, and, as we all knew, there is still no mention of a
solution for giving 12 million folks citizenship.   We need to make our
message clear to Congress, especially the Hispanic Caucus that if there is
no "citizenship" component to a bill we won't support it.   We want the
proposals from here on out to include immediate amnesty as the only
resolve; they must understand that you don't go to a gunfight armed with a
knife, and that they sure as hell should not try to fool us one more time
with the so-called "earned citizenship" rhetoric that caused deep and
unwarranted divisions among us last year.

When we have marched over the past year and a half, the foremost demand
conveyed in both the homemade and printed signs, among the speakers, and
in the outreach media such as flyers distributed among the Pueblo, is the
demand for full, unconditional, immediate amnesty for the undocumented
folks here in the US, and it should be, it is the primary goal of the
Movimiento por los Derechos de Inmigrantes.  The Pueblo is not silent, the
government won't listen.   In the recent campaign for a so-called
immigration reform, specifically the "grand bargain," Lou Dobbs et al,
used the term Amnesty against us, we must not allow this to happen.   We
as a Movimiento must take back and collectively embrace the term
"amnesty."  Again, amnesty is not a radical term; it is not an extremist
point of view to use this word.   Amnesty for many of our people was
accomplished once in this country in 1986 and it should be done again
because the stakes are much higher now, 12 million undocumented folks are
being attacked in low intensity psychological and political warfare.   Our
people are well aware of this.

Those who are on the fringes of the Movimiento, promote a pathway to
citizenship, but that is not the central goal of the Movemiento.  
Settling for citizenship while working for minimum wages after twenty
years and the earning the right to vote is hardly what is best for our
people.   The Democrat's agenda to institute an "essential worker" program
was questionable but surprising to many of us.   We have already
experienced this debacle.   We know guest worker programs spawn corruption
and the exploitation of labor and wages for the "authorized worker."   
This is hardly what is in the best interest of our people.   Ask any one
of the Ex-Braceros who are still in the struggle for their wages decades
later.  The Hispanic Caucus must consider our past experience with guest
workers, not discount it as mere "Mexican history," to reiterate, this is
US history, the country to which they have pledged their allegiance and
service.   For everything that is sacred in our community we must fight
against this unjust proposal to legalize our people qua institutionalized
servitude among the working poor.

There was a meeting in DC on October 25th with 4 of the 30 members of the
Hispanic Caucus, which was designed to walk us down the little moderate
brick road
again.   But they didn't.  Now it is all about a work visa
only, to be renewed every five years, with the only possibility for
legalization is when your children turn twenty-one years old and can
sponsor you, and according to Luis Gutierrez, the proclaimed champion of
immigration rights, "if you have no children, then you should go to the
bailes on a Saturday night and
"  The rationalization is that "this is
what [we] asked for
to stop the raids and division of the families."  
And, that "we should work together on this legislation because we worked
against each other and therefore caused many failures of legislative
proposals last year
"   To the contrary, we had nothing but victories last
year, the proposals that were proposed would have been detrimental to our
people, just like the Hispanic Caucus' current proposed legislation, that
would only legalize 600,000 parents of the 3.2 million US citizen
children, falls considerably short.

Instead, we should look more closely at our own Immigration Blueprint
created in Los Angeles in January 2007, under the guidance of Peter Schey,
a legal contributor to the IRCA campaign, and at the Sheila Jackson
proposal that preceded even HR4437.   We simply want a new legalization
program that will include the 12 million already here; it is not a radical
position, we have passed a legalization program once already in our
lifetime, and this time it should not exclude anyone.   Then any
legislation proposal must raise the visa cap for "future flow workers" to
never put us in this position again.



Conditions and Action

For over a year now we have conceived a march on Washington DC, not a
regional march, but a national one.   We have worked together yet we have
worked apart.

The regional efforts were successful last year, without a doubt.  This
year, the boycott on Primero de Mayo was a mere shadow of the previous;
let's face it the conditions were not there yet, but they are here now. 
El Pueblo marched and some participated in the not selling, buying, going
to school, and or not going to work requests- set forth by the handful of
boycott promoters- in limited numbers.

Given the conditions now, still no palatable legalization proposal, the
continuance of the raids in our communities, the heightened harassment of
the undocumented by local legislators- such as in Waukegan, Illinois,
where the economic resistance by the Pueblo there has caused stores to
shut shop, while forcing other business stakeholders to not support the
legislation against their undocumented customers- something must be done
among us in the Movimiento , collectively and nationally that will
centralize our efforts in the eyes of the political establishment.  In the
Rio Grande Valle, there is fencing still being proposed to be built along
the Texas border, yet the resistance against it even includes the mayor of
Brownsville, where he participated in an anti-border wall pachanga there
last month and the Movement is alive and well in Texas.  In Calexico,
there was a No Border encuentro in November 5-11 against the raids and
deportation centers, and everyone was invited to come out share space and
bring new ideas to the table, this group was attacked by the Migra with
teargas and batons, some were arrested.

Other cities around the country are struggling, for instance in Takoma
Park, Maryland, the council is attempting to overturn a decades old
sanctuary city agreement, also in Dane County, Wisconsin, folks in the
Movimiento there support a "county card" that will serve as an viable ID
for the undocumented and children, benefiting both groups without a doubt.
  There were some brothers with these cards in DC the other day.   And,
let's not overlook the HB1804 struggle in Oklahoma City where the battle
has heated up in recent days between pro and anti immigrant groups.

There have been some small but significant victories as well, in Danbury,
Connecticut, the council was forced to allow a protest against the
collaborative 287g ACCESS program with ICE, in Kansas City, a Judge found
that an undocumented brother could not be in violation of probation
because he was here unauthorized and sentenced him only to jail, and an
Appeals Panel later ruled that although he did come into the country
unauthorized, there is no Congressional law that implies if you stay you
are doing so unlawfully, it is only the act of "crossing" that violates
Federal law, and of course in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, where the proposed
plan to publicly and economically marginalize our brothers and sisters was
found to be unconstitutional.

In Phoenix, the 287G issue is at the forefront, and many are being unduly
affected by the strong-arm of the law there, who continue to take on
federal immigration law enforcement with little to no legal or political
resistance, our people are leaving the state entirely.   In fact at the
October 25th meeting in DC, Congressman Luis Gutierrez refused to touch
the issue when asked to take on the national issue of 287G as part of a
review committee.   He said, "I am not going to lie to you, I will not do
it."   What is the Latino Caucus waiting for?  Nevertheless, Gutierrez did
offer to go to Arizona in person to denounce the measure.   Stay tuned.

There are still issues looming such as the saga of our sister Elvira, and
the struggle she has broadened into Mexico, and left behind here in the
US, there are many devoted folks that continue to carry the banner of her
struggle, a few of which we accompanied on September 12 th in DC. 
Although a controversial action that alienated some moderate folks from
the struggle, I believe the action in the halls of congress on September
12th led by our carnalito Saulito Arellano made a powerful statement; we
took the struggle right into the belly of the Beast and their only
response was to corner the 100 of us and put us all under arrest.   That
was powerful!  We need to continue going to DC and keeping the pressure
on


In terms of the raids, check points, and deportations, they have been
steadily and calculatingly undertaken.   ICE officials know that if you
were to spread them out and do a little here and a little there, the
response would be minimal and regional.   Again, we need to centralize our
efforts.  We have been under low intensity warfare since the spring 2006
mobilizations, the Swift raids (1,297 arrested), in NYC, in Boston, in
Little Village Chicago on April 24 th which enraged the community so much
it motivated a large outpouring on Chicago streets on May 1st, and most
recently in Los Angeles (1,327 arrested), what ICE is calling the largest
of them all, and the many more in smaller communities that should not be
overlooked.   ICE refers to the arrested innocent bystanders as
"collateral damage," when they go in for felons, clearly establishing the
division of our families as part of the sentence for "harboring" a
suspected felon.   Part of the local organizing efforts should be to
educate our community not to open the doors to ICE without a tangible
warrant.

Relative to the raids in Long Island, NYC, and New Jersey, a legal defense
campaign has been launched by Andrea Siebert ( sieberta at mail. law.cuny.
edu or 347-249-7127) and or Laura Perez ( perezl at mail. law.cuny. edu or
718-207-8080) at CUNY School of Law, in an effort to find representation
for those that are being held in Houston, Texas; this is a vitally
important struggle.

Appallingly, the President has the power and authority to stop the raids
and yet sought to beef up workplace "enforcement," the Supreme Court has
had the power to impose an injunction on the inhumane raids- and on that
note, kudos to the district court that has stalled the no match letter
conundrum and the AFL-CIO and others who brought the issue to it- yet ICE
continues separating our families as Congress sits vacuously silent and
many of our people seek refuge, or voluntary confinement, in churches
around the country.   The establishment is draining us, and has given us
no other alternative but to march and rally on their doorstep in mass, and
fill the halls of Congress with our people lobbying for immediate
legalization.

La Gran Marcha Nacional 2008, "A Million Immigrant March"

The rumor is true; a group of us have submitted and received permission to
march on the Capitol next May 1 st through 3rd.   We cannot do this alone;
we need everyone's ideas, help, and access to resources.  We need all
organizers nationally to help build the infrastructure for this event for
the Pueblo to come and partake in the right to assemble and more
importantly to be recognized as being a part of the very fabric that holds
this country together.   By December 11th, we need to have a clear picture
of what the action would look like for the meeting with the DC agencies
involved, and invite those that can attend the meeting with them and the
rest of the organizers for this action from around the country to be there
also. Therefore, on December 8 th we will have a meeting in LA to create
the program for the event.   The major projected events for Thursday
through Saturday include, rallies, lobbying, encircle the Capitol,
statewide reports, and a marcha.  We need organizers from each state to
organize the time for their statewide reports, we then will need security
volunteers and a group that will coordinate them, another point person to
handle first aid, organizers to set-up, break-down, and maintain,
therefore we need someone to coordinate that project.   The largest
assembly on the Hill has been nearly 900,000 individuals against the war,
and against reprisals from the establishment, the police, and war
supporters; we need to dwarf this number.   It can be done; half of us
were there in April 2006, "imagine bringing the other half?

To be on the working-group listserve, send emails to
granmarchanacional2008 at gmail.com.  Please send ideas, questions,
complaints, volunteer capacities, access to a stage, entertainment
volunteering or contacts, first aid, tent availability, speakers, etc., to
the email address, or come to the first organizing meeting in Los Angeles
on December 8 th, at 10 am at the Placita Olvera with further ideas and
donations (we have raised $10,000 seed money); there will be places
available for you to stay with enough time to prepare.   The follow up
meeting will be in Chicago in late January, and hopefully the next in the
greater DC area.

In the meantime, we encourage you to get endorsements from your
organizations, unions, coalitions, churches, home associations, families,
immigration agencies, universities and their clubs, associations, groups,
etc., and entertainers and media outlets, this will take a great big
effort of outreaching, fundraising, and mobilizing, but if everyone pulls
their parts in the division of labor, all of our grains of sand will come
together to form the beach on which to crash the wave of people that has
never been seen before in the history of mass mobilizations to the
Capitol.

En solidaridad, and Stay Strong in the Struggle,

Jesse Díaz, Jr., Political Action Committee Chair for La Hermandad
Mexicana Transnacional, Inland Empire, CA

Gloria Saucedo, Director of La Hermandand Mexicana Nacional, Panorama
City, CA

Alicia Flores, La Hermandad Mexicana Transnacional, Oxnard, CA