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 Editorials | Opinions | November 2006 
Washington's Racist Plan to Divide U.S. & Mexican Workers
 Jon Seid and Melissa Sanders - Socialist Alternative
| | Scalabrinian Sister Maria de la Luz, center, and volunteers Martha Ramirez, right, and Alba Barrios of the Casa del Migrante shelter for immigrants, place marigold flowers onto the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Mexico, as part of an altar dedicated to undocumented migrant children who have died while crossing into the United States. (CNS/David Maung) |
Although the United States is the most prominent example of a nation based on foreign immigration, the U.S. government has long discriminated again immigrants. In recent decades, the focal point of the immigration debate has become our neighbor to the south, Mexico.
In spring 2006, Congress passed a bill for the construction of a massive wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The wall will cost upwards of $1.2 billion in the coming year. It will run the length of the border and include lighting, security cameras, and roads in areas known for high levels of illegal crossing.
This is a billion plus dollars that would be better used improving schools, providing jobs and healthcare, cleaning up the environment, and building some decent public housing.
Though this bill has been sold to the public as a measure to promote both national security and protect jobs, it is really nothing more than another attempt by big business to systematically limit the rights of immigrants, thereby reinforcing their second-class status in U.S. society.
This approach facilitates the exploitation of undocumented immigrants by creating an atmosphere of fear in immigrant communities, leading them to be less likely to fight employer abuses for fear of being deported.
It is not that big business is opposed to immigration. On the contrary, American capitalism relies on a constant supply of cheap laborers to boost their bottom line. However, big business engineers the passage of anti-immigration laws to allay the concerns of American workers about dwindling job opportunities.
This approach serves the dual purpose of keeping immigrant and native workers divided and weak despite their shared role in the global economy. Indeed, all workers, regardless of nationality, share common material interests that can only be achieved through cooperation against Corporate America.
The bill’s wide margin of victory in both the House of Representatives and the Senate is further proof of the Democratic Party’s complicity in America’s long-standing racism and attacks on immigrant rights. The large segments of the party who voted with Republicans in favor of the bill will sorely disappoint many who have looked to the Democrats to pursue a more rational approach to immigration.
The Democratic Party has demonstrated time and again that their loyalties lie not with immigrants or American workers, but their big business backers. |
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