Calero’s visit here, part of a nationwide tour, helped build solidarity for the campaign to stop the INS from deporting him to his native Nicaragua.
Calero is an editor of Perspectiva Mundial, a Spanish-language monthly published in New York, and a Militant staff writer. On December 3 he was returning home to the United States from reporting trips to Cuba and Mexico. INS agents seized Calero at Houston Intercontinental Airport, told him he was denied entry to the United States, and carted him off to an immigration jail. He was later released after hundreds of people poured messages of protest in to the INS office in Texas. He now faces exclusion from this country. Immigration officials began deportation proceedings against him based on a 1988 plea-bargain conviction, when he was a high school student, for selling an ounce of marijuana to an undercover cop. The INS waived this conviction in granting him permanent residency, which Calero has held for 13 years, and then in renewing it in the year 2000.
Some 45 people took part in the meetings here, which were followed by lively discussion. "I have visited 16 other cities and have met with a growing number of people who are speaking out against similar injustices," said Calero at the Northwest Multipurpose Center event here March 10.
"What is the most effective way to fight?" asked Jorge Riveros, a journalist for the Spanish-language monthly magazine Nuestro Mundo. He described the growing distrust of police by Latino workers in face of stepped up harassment by cops in this area. In February, the INS raided a factory in the Provo, Utah, area and arrested over 100 workers, most from Mexico. More than 50 have been deported and the rest remain in jail. Several protests have taken place at the state capitol building in Salt Lake City to demand justice for these workers. "INS raids and harassment of immigrants will get worse. We need to get more organized," Riveros said.
Calero pointed to the need to reach out to working people of all nationalities and defend immigrant workers. "Many see in this struggle their fight," Calero said. "We need to turn to all labor struggles and lend support, and reject the notion of denial of rights to a certain layer. Working people can see the stakes involved in allowing the government to prosecute you twice for the same offense."
Calero said he had met the day before with coal miners in Rangely, Colorado, who are members of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Local 1984. "They related periodic experiences of being stopped by the cops," he stated. "They understood what a problem it would be if the cops had the right to keep going after you for anything they prosecuted you for in the past."
Some 1,300 copper miners and smelter workers at the huge Kennecott Utah Copper Co. are fighting steep concessions that "affect workers’ lives in every way," said John Langford, a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 392, who spoke along with Calero at the Northwest Multipurpose Center. He told the audience that the company imposed concessions on the work force in October that gut seniority, retirement, and health care, and "go after retirees with a vengeance." Langford described actions workers have been taking to resist these moves and invited participants to join him and his coworkers in a protest.
At the University of Utah the next day Calero was hosted by the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), a campus organization that promotes justice for employees at the school and in the community. Over 20 students, many from the Economics Department, and others took part in the noon event. Luis Clemente, a worker from Mexico, came after hearing Calero the night before. Later that afternoon, Clemente accompanied Calero to an interview at KRCL radio.
An Iraqi student asked Calero how the U.S.A. Patriot Act has affected his status. Calero said that many of the laws being used today against immigrants and other workers precede the Bush administration or are built on previous legislation passed during the eight years of William Clinton in the White House. Washington has accelerated these attacks on workers’ rights, he stated, as the capitalist system worldwide has entered a prolonged depression.
Calero encouraged the students and others to write letters of protest to the INS, demanding deportation proceedings against him be dropped, and to help get out the fact sheets on the case. Materials in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic were available at the meeting. "The first endorsement in Arabic just arrived at the defense committee office in New York from Basra, Iraq," Calero noted. That spurred Ferda Dönmez, a student from Turkey and a leader of SLAP, to enthusiastically volunteer to work on the Turkish translation of the defense committee materials.
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