Photo: Irineo Mujica Arzate
We marched, we protested and we dreamed for a better future for our families and ourselves.
We dreamed of a future in which we would not be criminalized, not be treated as second class citizens, have labor rights and where our sons and daughters could aspire to go to a university and have a better future. Rather than fulfilling the dream of the 11 million undocumented immigrants, we have legislation in Congress that will plunge the immigrant community into further despair and persecution.
As it stands, S. 744, will force undocumented immigrants to apply for Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status for 10 years or more. It will exclude or disqualify up to 5 million people from the Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) program. It will also double the number of Border Patrol Agents, build a 50 billion dollar double wall along the U.S./Mexico border, create a Guest Worker Program and mandate nationwide E-verify for every worker in this country.
Many legislators in Congress are saying that the bill as passed by the Senate will not be approved by the House of Representatives, unless more amendments are added to the bill to make it even worse.
Bad public policies such as S. 744 are the direct result of the lack of a political vision that addresses the needs, dreams, hopes and concerns of immigrant and poor working families in this country. Our lack of a political vision and agenda for working families has led to our dependency on a two-party system, a two-party system that is under the absolute control of corporate interests. Make no mistake about it, the two-party system is using its power to undermine immigrants’ rights, workers’ rights, civil liberties, and day by day exercises more and more corporate control over the population through public policy.
Some of the biggest beneficiaries of S. 744 will be corporations, who via their lobbyists in Congress will gain billions of dollars from the taxpayer’s money. For example, Boeing will gain billions of dollars by building the double wall fence on the border; IBM and Lockheed Martin will also gain billions by managing telecommunications, aircraft and data processing.
Without structure, vision or a program to solve the question of the undocumented immigrant, the Immigrant Rights Movement like many other movements in our history avowed to one of the two political parties, in this case the Democrats, in hope that they will deliver real immigration reform. But instead, as history has shown, they did what they do best: play politics with people’s lives. In this case, the most vulnerable, the undocumented immigrants who will get nailed in the end.
Faith, community and labor organizations that fought and continue to fight for immigrants’ rights are asking themselves: is, S. 744 the reform they have been seeking and fighting for all these years, and if the answer is no, what is the alternative?
Many organizations that represent a large number of immigrant constituents within their membership are horrified by what they think will become immigration reform and they want to openly oppose it. But for such organizations to openly oppose the bill, will bring political consequences, due to the fact that people are not very well informed on how bad this bill truly is. For unions, clubs or associations to oppose the bill will create problems with their political allies. It will create friction and disagreements within their membership because of the hope that people, or at least some people, may benefit from immigration reform.
The reality of S. 744 is that it will leave up to five million people with no reform and no hope for a better tomorrow. The bill will alter the political landscape of this country for undocumented immigrants and citizens. Immigrants will continue to be easy targets for politicians that have no principles or moral values and who only care about themselves. Out of fear and necessity, a possible Guest Worker Program will add more vulnerable workers that can easily be exploited by ruthless employers.
We need a vision and a program to fight for workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, family reunification, anti-criminalization of the undocumented, and to end the deportations.
