by Ajamu
Baraka
How
did a movement that put millions on the streets in 2006 allow the
development of something called the “comprehensive immigration reform
act,” now being debated in U.S. Congress, which expands the guest worker
program, devotes millions to border and immigration enforcement, denies
migrants access to public services and in general does not recognize
the rights of migrants and immigrants as full human beings with human
rights? This legislation does not in any way reflect the power and
success of the immigrant rights movement—instead, it demonstrates its
loss of autonomy and vision. What is being touted as immigration reform
is no more than an unprincipled capitulation to the forces of nativism,
white supremacy and liberal opportunism.
How
did this happen? Unfortunately, the failure of the immigrant rights
movement in the U.S. is a story that is not unique. Like a recurring
nightmare that haunts progressive/radical activists and movements in the
U.S. over the last forty years, the story of the immigrant rights
movement is one in which the final chapter was predetermined as soon as
it allowed itself to be influenced by the paternalism and conservative
politics of the liberal non-profit industrial complex and the interests
of the Democratic Party. Movement fragmentation and the marginalization
of its radical elements, unprincipled pragmatism, demoralization and
demobilization of its popular base, and eventual dissolution have proven
to be the inevitable outcome of many popular movements, from the civil
rights and women rights movements though to the environmental and now
immigrant rights movements, after they allowed themselves to be hijacked
by the liberal establishment and drained of all radical
possibilities.
While
there have been many missed opportunities and strange developments
within the immigrant rights movement, one of the most politically
backward developments was the movement’s embracing of the colonialist
narrative related to the origins and character of the U.S. By pushing
the “we are all immigrants” line, a position encouraged by the
non-profit hustlers and political hacks from the Democratic Party that
hijacked the movement, the movement collaborated with the white
supremacist narrative that erased the presence of indigenous people in
the territory that became the U.S. and the reality of the U.S. as a
colonialist, white settler-State.
This
communications strategy of winning “acceptance” from mainstream white
supporters is always the objective of the media hustlers brought in to
advise emerging movements and campaigns. However, the result of this
communications strategy was that instead of winning over the white
public, it unwittingly reinforced the narrative of nativists and white
supremacists who see themselves as the first and only legitimate
“immigrants” to a territory given to them by God as a “white nation,”
making border enforcement and continued repression “legitimate” and
necessary components of any agreement on immigration reform.
Settlers
are not immigrants—they are occupiers. But of course this inconvenient
fact is not part of the colonial fantasy that passes as U.S. history nor
is it considered by the proponents of the “path to citizenship."
Along
with the brutal colonial conquest and attempted genocide of the
indigenous people of this land, the racist foundations that justified
genocidal policies and the institution of slavery and racist
totalitarian terror for a hundred years after the official ending of
slavery are subjects that many immigrant rights spokespeople assiduously
avoid. The exception to the movement’s general silence on the issue of
race and racism—even in light of the racist pogrom directed at
undocumented migrants from Latin America since 2006—was references to
Dr. King—but only as long as those references were the distorted,
deradicalized version of Dr. King and the movement that produced him.
Not
everyone in the immigrant rights movement embraced this petit-bourgeois
silliness. A number of organizations have been involved in principled
work around the human rights of migrant workers victimized by the
contradictions of globalization, which has resulted in migration as an
only option for survival for many workers and displaced farmers. But for
individuals and organizations that did not toe the liberal, Democratic
Party “pro-citizenship” line, as opposed to legalization, there was a
price to pay. Those organizations were either under-funded or de-funded
and relegated to the hinterlands of the movement.
Immigration
legislation will probably pass in some form in the near future, but
millions of people will still find themselves denied their full range of
human rights, and we must continue the struggle for those rights. Our
common humanity and commitment to social justice can serve a basis for
building an independent, multi-national, anti-oppression, people’s
movement that emphasizes people-centered human rights,
self-determination, authentic decolonization, and a politicized global
perspective that understands the contradiction of global capitalism and
imperialism, which push and pull people across national borders. There
is a basis in the U.S. for a new progressive social bloc, if only we can
see its potential form and have the courage to struggle with our
differences and contradictions to snatch victory back from our defeat.
This is the key lesson that we can take from the efforts for
comprehensive immigration reform.
Ajamu
Baraka is a long-time human rights activist and veteran of the Black
Liberation, anti-war, anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity
Movements in the United States. He is currently a fellow at the
Institute for Policy Studies. Baraka is currently living in Cali,
Colombia.
