THE MASSIVE actions in the spring of 2006 in response to a House bill to criminalize and deport all of the estimated twelve million undocumented immigrants have become an important reference point for activists. And for good reasons: the sheer size and scale of the demonstrations, that they mobilized one of the most downtrodden and vulnerable sections of U.S. society, the working-class character of the movement, the use of the economic boycott, and the symbolism of marching on May Day.

All of a sudden, a movement emerged seemingly out of nowhere, demonstrating in practice a number of central socialist arguments regarding the power of the working class. It also acted as confirmation of the perspective that the unprecedented increase in inequality and social contradictions in U.S. society would, at some point, manifest itself in protest. It certainly brought into clear view massive demographic changes and provided a window into the future of class struggle in the United States. However, the fact that the immigrant rights struggle has not been able to sustain momentum and has, seemingly, disappeared has been equally disorienting and demoralizing.

The 1980s were, for the most part, grim years. Thatcherism and Reaganism replaced the revolutionary optimism of the 1970s; militant capitalism replaced an upsurge in working-class struggle. Today is nothing like the 1980s but neither is it marked by a sustained revival of working-class struggle. Instead, we are somewhere in between. The immigrant rights movement is one of a number of struggles that have flourished over the last fifteen years, indicating the class struggle is moving in the right direction but still lacks the necessary ingredients to significantly alter the basic balance of class forces. The small size of the left is far from the only problem; there are many factors, but as long as the left is too weak to provide some basic elements of political leadership and strategy, movements will struggle to develop coherence or go forward effectively.

No doubt we can look forward to a future revival in class struggle. There will be many battles in this transition, many ups and downs, and they will in turn shape the outcome of future struggles. This process is necessary to sharpen consciousness within the working class and allow organization and confidence to be rebuilt. The millions of immigrants here, documented and undocumented, are an integral part of the U.S. working class. The struggle for legalization is not just a question for immigrants but is a component of, and bound up with, the future of the whole working class.

Struggle on the defensive

Today, the immigrant rights struggle remains on the defensive. A backlash against the undocumented has been growing since Wisconsin Representative James Sensenbrenner’s “deport them all” bill was defeated. Efforts by the corporate mainstream of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to pass “compromise” legislation that included some sort of restricted legalization for a minority combined with strict draconian enforcement policies failed last summer, largely due to pressure from the right wing of the Republican Party who viewed any kind of “pathway to citizenship” as amnesty.

The ISR was not alone in recognizing that passage of “compromise” legislation would have been a setback for the undocumented and the working class. However, its defeat left many activists deflated and removed the goal that mass demonstrations and organizing were designed to achieve. Though there was principled opposition to the bipartisan deal Congress debated, the Right mobilized much more aggressively and effectively. Despite the reactionary concessions made by Democrats to push through the deal, there was widespread revulsion at seeing any form of legislation arrested by racists and frustration that the Democrat-controlled Congress was held hostage by an increasingly isolated right wing.

As a result, the “anti-illegal” wing of the Republican Party grew in confidence. For them, this was an unexpected turnaround of events. When the Democrats took control of Congress in November, the Right felt completely isolated and believed amnesty to be imminent. As the Republican Party machine unraveled, they made a desperate attempt to block legislation by focusing on the issue of enforcement. They were able to make headway on this issue because the mainstream Latino NGOs, unions like SEIU and UNITE HERE, and the Catholic Church accept the argument that enforcement is necessary for any kind of legalization.

This logic was defended by Democratic Party presidential hopeful Barack Obama when he voted for construction of a vast wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Obama had initially said he would not support such a project but explained to dismayed activists in Chicago that “to get something it was necessary to give something” to the Republicans.

The Democratic Party has never come under significant pressure to put forward an alternative to militarization of the border and the interior. The political Right has set the framework for the immigration debate and dominated it. The more concessions the Democratic Party and liberal organizations made to enforcement policies the further this fed the confidence of immigrant-bashers. This dynamic continues today.

Repression grows

Since last summer, the Right has pressed ahead with its strategy of “attrition through enforcement.” The mainstream press has documented scores of examples of anti-immigrant legislation at the state and municipal level over the last year in response to the failure of federal legislation. The recent Arizona law, implemented on January 1, is one of the toughest to date, threatening to shut companies down for employing undocumented workers. All of Arizona’s businesses will be required to use the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) E-Verify system, a pilot program that electronically checks Social Security status and other records. Nationwide, some 30,000 employers have enrolled in the system, and more than three million workers were checked last year.

Similarly, in Oklahoma, a highly restrictive anti-immigrant law went into effect on November 1, 2007. The law bars access to all public services for the undocumented and makes it a felony to transport or harbor an undocumented immigrant. Since then, according to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, some 25,000 Latinos have fled northeastern Oklahoma.

The Bush administration has pushed enforcement by expanding the militarization of the border and conducting massive workplace raids and neighborhood sweeps. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 30,408 immigrants with deportation orders in fiscal year 2007, about twice as many as the previous year. Overall, ICE claims to have deported a record 276,912 immigrants in 2007. Close to two million immigrants were deported since the implementation of new laws by the Clinton administration in 1996 and another three million are estimated to have left by accepting “voluntary departure.” A further consequence has been more deaths at the border. The Coalición de Derechos Humanos based in Tucson reported 237 border deaths in fiscal year 2007, up from 205 in 2006. Significantly, ICE was also able to detain and deport Elvira Arellano, who played an inspirational role by defying a deportation order and taking up sanctuary in Chicago.

The results of a recent Pew Research Center survey convey the overall impact this crackdown is having on undocumented communities: two-thirds of Latinos said their lives have become more difficult since the struggle over legalization began; half fear they, a relative, or a close friend could be deported; 41 percent of Latinos said they or someone close to them had a personal experience of discrimination in the last five years, up 10 percent since 2001; and half of Latinos polled said it was harder to get a job or housing.

Elections and anti-immigrant rhetoric

Rudderless, the Republican Party candidates are attempting to use racism against Latino immigrants as a rallying point in election 2008, and there is no doubt this activates a section of their base. Campaign anti-immigrant rhetoric is certainly adding to the climate of fear and terror the undocumented feel and further encouraging the right and anti-immigrant sentiment in the broader population. Largely, they can get away with this because none of the major Democratic Party candidates are willing to take a principled stand in defense of immigrants and, instead, choose to legitimize the appeals of the Right by incorporating calls for enforcement.

The mainstream media, including “liberal” papers like the New York Times, have aided this by incorrectly creating the impression that there is hysteria among the American population about “illegal aliens.” Tamar Jacoby, from the conservative Manhattan Institute, writes:

Public opinion surveys on immigration are remarkably consistent, changing little even in the last year. An unvarying 20 percent to 25 percent of voters are bitterly anti-immigrant: determined to close the borders, send illegal workers home, cut back even legal immigration quotas. Although, they are a minority, these xenophobes are loud and intense: they call in to talk radio, show up at town hall meetings, write to members of Congress and dominate the debate. Another 15 percent to 20 percent are generally sympathetic to immigrants but neither vocal nor intense. And the majority—the 60 percent in the middle—is ambivalent and uncertain, undeniably anxious about the influx but also prepared to come to terms pragmatically with the twelve million illegal immigrants in the country.

Similarly, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, conducted in late November last year, found that only 15 percent of Americans rank immigration as one of the top three issues of concern to them. Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten noted, “more than nine out of ten Americans think something matters more than immigration in this presidential election.” Another recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that “a strong bipartisan majority—60 percent—favors allowing illegal immigrants who have not committed crimes to become citizens if they pay fines, learn English, and meet other requirements.” This does not negate the argument that constant unchallenged bombardment with the politics of hate and fear will not have an impact on consciousness—it already has. However, activists can very easily come to see the media hype as fact, leading them to feel increasingly isolated, marginalized, and depressed, when in fact under the right circumstances the climate could be shifted.

Recession and elections

In reality, the vast majority of U.S.-born workers, both white and Black, have mixed consciousness when it comes to the question of immigration. Hard-core racists are a minority, but many workers accept some of the racist anti-immigrant arguments now tolerated as mainstream in U.S. society. This should come as no surprise since unions and other liberal organizations tend to incorporate enforcement and so do not challenge the assumptions these proposals are built on.

If the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate and enters into recession, the politics of scapegoating can get even more of a hearing. Economic insecurity is now a central election issue, and, if large numbers of native-born workers begin to lose their homes and jobs over the next ten months, economic populism targeted against undocumented workers could gain more currency. These are the kind of conditions in which the Right can grow.

Melissa Nalani Ross, from the Center for New Community (CNC), in a workshop on the “Forces and Faces of the Anti-Immigrant Movement” at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) conference, explained the politics and connections between reactionary groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Pioneer Fund, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and Numbers USA. A myriad of these groups operate behind the scenes to influence public discussion of immigration and push politicians to adopt anti-immigrant initiatives. According to a new CNC report, “As these national groups have expanded their influence the number of state and local organizations has jumped. Between January of 2005 and January of 2007, such groups increased in number by 600 percent.” When armed Minutemen appeared on the Arizona border in 2005, there were thirty-seven anti-immigrant groups in twenty-five states; by September 2007, the number increased to 332, covering almost all states.

Struggle and resistance

In the face of this, the immigrant rights movement is politically divided and geographically fragmented. Because there is no national coordination or coherent strategy, some wrongly assume the movement has disappeared. This is far from the case. There has been resistance and responses of some sort (legal, boycott, protests, etc.) everywhere anti-immigrant initiatives have been implemented.

Few of these struggles have been as successful as the Chicago Cygnus workers’ strike last summer (see http://www.isreview.org/issues/55/report...) but do show the ongoing potential for organizing. Thousands marched and boycotted in Carpentersville, Illinois, in Waukegan, Ilinois, and Prince William’s County, Virginia, against legislation targeting the undocumented. Tacoma County, Maryland, voted to keep its sanctuary city agreement and the Nation’s Peter Schrag reports:

Last summer, the city council of New Haven, Connecticut, enacted a measure to issue what it calls Elm City Resident Cards—ID cards that also serve as small-balance debit cards—to all local residents, legal and illegal. In November, San Francisco adopted a virtually identical program….

Some fifty jurisdictions, among them San Francisco, Los Angeles, [and] Cambridge, Massachusetts, have declared themselves sanctuary cities or cities of refuge and/or ordered their employees not to cooperate with the feds in enforcing federal immigration laws. Some, like Stamford, Connecticut, have created “no-hassle zones” for day laborers seeking jobs, nearly all of them undocumented. Detroit has an anti-profiling ordinance that prevents cops and other city employees from questioning people on the basis of a whole range of characteristics, including immigration status.

As recently as February 6 some four thousand demonstrated at Danbury, Connecticut, City Hall against an ordinance allowing police to take on immigration responsibilities. It is estimated some seventy cities, counties, and states have enacted sanctuary policies. Meetings at the Border Social Forum last summer demonstrated that many organizations across the country had independently initiated emergency response networks to respond to raids and deportations. The emergence of the national clergy-based New Sanctuary Movement is also a very important development.

Additionally, legal challenges have stalled some of the most egregious attacks on the undocumented. For example, anti-immigrant legislation in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and Farmers Branch, Texas, was blocked by federal courts. Very significantly, the Bush administration’s plan to post 150,000 no-match letters to employers targeting millions of undocumented workers was successfully blocked by a legal challenge initiated by the AFL-CIO and other pro-immigrant advocacy groups. Also, the United Food and Commercial Workers have brought a lawsuit against workplace raids.
More than six hundred activists attended the recent National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) conference in Houston, Texas, for education, debate, and discussion on diverse issues ranging from Organizing Against the War on Terror, Guest Workers and the New Slavery, Raising Women’s Voices: Immigrant Women and Health Care, fifteen Years After NAFTA and Youth Organizing: Beyond DREAM. The bigger than expected turnout indicates activists came to be part of something larger in an attempt to overcome the fragmentation and disorientation many feel and to discuss how to move the struggle forward in the difficult context of an election year.

Election 2008 and activism

Given the scale of this multipronged attack, a much greater response is necessary to defend the undocumented and ultimately seek to turn the tide. Grass-roots activism with the goal of mobilizing the undocumented and their supporters in defense of immigrant rights is crucial to rebuilding confidence and organization, but with the elections preponderant, this will be enormously difficult to achieve this year.

Last October, the AFL-CIO, along with numerous other groups, including the American Friends Service Committee, SEIU, and Jobs With Justice, organized a national day of action against the issuance of no-match letters in conjunction with the legal challenge. This was an opportunity to mobilize undocumented workers and rebuild confidence in the midst of the right-wing offensive. However, this was not to be the case. Firstly, the issue of no-match was kept separate from raids and deportations. Further, organizers argued the focus should be on the impact of no-match on native-born workers rather than the undocumented. This strategy has been defended because it was pragmatically successful; the court case against no-match revolved around its impact on U.S. citizens. However, while it is one thing to have a “smart” legal strategy, it is another to have a strategy capable of strengthening the movement, developing self-confidence among immigrant workers, and strengthening local grass-roots committees. Without the massive marches in 2006 and 2007, undocumented workers at Cygnus would not have had the confidence to strike and hold the struggle together for so long.

This strategy dovetails with the argument, held privately by liberal groups and less privately by Democrats, that large numbers of undocumented immigrants marching only assists the cause of the Right by giving them something to mobilize around. Thus, in an election year where the Republicans are attempting to use immigration as a wedge issue, there will be tremendous pressure exerted directly and indirectly by the Democratic Party machine not to have marches and rallies featuring large numbers of undocumented Mexican immigrants. Already, major unions have ruled out support for May Day protests.

Though many liberal immigrant rights activists tend to be cynical about the Democratic Party, this will not reduce the pull of lesser-evilism. For example, the liberal Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) organized hundreds of their members to participate in a Democratic Party primary debate in Iowa. When Hillary Clinton refused to say whether she would push for comprehensive immigration reform in her first hundred days as president, she was loudly booed by ICIRR members. However, this will in no way preclude the ICIRR from going full throttle to get out the vote for whomever becomes the Democratic Party candidate. In general, very broad sections of the immigrant rights movement believe that a Democratic Party–controlled White House and Congress will create better conditions for winning some form of legalization and ending the crackdown on immigrant communities. And, there is no doubt Obama’s campaign is generating growing enthusiasm and expectations among large numbers of Latino immigrants and immigrant rights advocates.

With pressure on grass-roots activism to take a backseat “to getting out the vote,” the next ten months are going to be tough for those who insist that real change comes from below. But, if the U.S. economy becomes recessionary, an emboldened Right can further employ the politics of blaming the victim to greater effect; all immigrant rights supporters will have to find effective ways to respond.