05/01/10
As an anti-war and occupation organization we recognize that the oppression faced by undocumented immigrants in the United States is part of a larger system of violence carried out by the US government against indigenous peoples and people of color around the world. We believe that US wars and occupations are intricately linked to border militarization and the criminalization of immigrants. Mass undocumented immigration in North America is a direct consequence of the neo-liberal policies of the United States government. Through legislation like NAFTA and CAFTA, the factory-style labor that US corporations depend on for profit is exported to Central and South America where workers can be paid slave wages out of sight of US consumers. Due to the subsequent decimation of local industries and farming economies, millions are forced to migrate North to seek any employment.
In effect, the militarization of the border and criminalization of immigrants amounts to a racist spectacle that is ineffectual in deterring undocumented immigration and effective only in dehumanizing immigrants as a way to justify opulent defense spending and the development of private security contracts on the border. As a consequence of border militarization in and around urban centers, migrants desperate for work are forced into isolated desert regions, causing a sharp rise in the number of migrants who die due to dehydration, minor injuries, and other preventable causes while crossing each year. The border fence has also bisected ancient indigenous communities in blatant violation of Native sovereignty, contaminating and cutting off access to traditional land bases. White Americans who oppose immigration reinforce the myth of white nativism in North America, erasing the history of land theft, genocide, and slavery that delivered the US to its founding fathers.
Both the war on terror and the domestic war on immigration are state-sponsored programs of violence that use a strategy of collective punishment to produce profits for American corporations. The same racist rhetoric of exclusion around immigration is used to justify the slaughter of Iraqis and Afghans overseas. And yet, this financing of military operations on the border and across the globe greatly outweighs the funds needed to provide health and human services for all living in the United States, regardless of their immigration status.
Immigrant workers must not struggle against violent racist nationalism alone. It is imperative that all people act in direct solidarity with local immigrant groups against the continued degradation of Latin@ life across the continent.
