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Vol. 72/No. 5      February 4, 2008

 
Legalization of all immigrants now!
(editorial)
 
Recently, several states have adopted measures whose goal is to intimidate workers without documents and push back the movement for legalization. But from Arizona to Indiana, immigrant workers are resisting.

Attacks on immigrants are aimed at maintaining a permanent category of workers with fewer rights who are more vulnerable to superexploitation. The bosses’ goal is to push down the wages, conditions, and confidence of the entire working class—U.S.- and foreign-born.

In Michigan, a new policy went into effect January 22 that bars people without permanent residency from obtaining driver’s licenses, even if they are living in the United States legally. In Indiana, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles has sent letters to 206,000 people whose licenses supposedly do not match their Social Security numbers.

Connecting driver’s licenses to Social Security numbers is a good example of how the government’s offensive against immigrants is aimed at the entire working class. Increasingly, state and federal governments are taking steps toward establishing a national ID. As in other capitalist countries, a national ID card would make it easier for cops to track militant workers. It would help employers create blacklists of “troublemakers”—with or without legal papers.

But immigrant workers and their supporters are responding to these and other attempts to intimidate a layer of our class. Some 650 people gathered in Houston January 18-20 for an immigrant rights conference. A January 19 meeting in Indianapolis brought together 150 workers to organize against attacks on immigrants in that state. Immigrant workers and their supporters rallied in Seattle January 7 against pending deportations of 2,000 Cambodians. Already, activists are preparing for May 1, a date that millions of workers now identify as a day to register support for legalization by calling off work and marching in the streets.

This response illustrates the confidence that marks the immigrant rights struggle today. As one immigrant worker in Phoenix, Arizona, put it, “They say they’re going to build a big fence—well, we’re going to build an even bigger ladder.”

Such confidence is a strength for the entire labor movement. The unions should throw their weight behind the fight for legalization, with no conditions.
 
 
Related articles:
Stop deportations! Legalization now!
Socialist presidential candidate tours Chicago, attends Indiana immigrant rights conference
Indiana events press fight for driver’s licenses for immigrants
Seattle protest: Stop the deportation of Cambodians!
Arizona: workers protest anti-immigrant attacks  
 
 
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