| The Battle of Waukegan By Cristóbal Cavazos WAUKEGAN, Ill. — To thousands of protesters here July 16, the city administration turned itself into an alien body maintained by helicopters, snipers, swat teams and dogs. Undeterred by the show of military force, more than 6,000 immigrant rights supporters filled Martin Luther Jr. Ave., spilling onto the steps of City Hall. Inside, the City Council, joined by the mayor, voted 8-2 to convert police here into "polimigra," or immigration agents, in a town where Latinos comprise up to 80 percent of the population. The July 16 vote confirmed an earlier decision to sign up for a federal program, provision 287(g), that turns local police into enforcers of federal immigration law with authority to arrest and detain immigrants and start deportation proceedings against them. Outside, united indignation clamored from thousands of voices. The battle of Waukegan, some are calling it. "We built these buildings, we made these streets!" said Waukegan resident Juan Carlos, deep in the midst of the crowd. "Ten years ago I got here only to find Waukegan was vacant lots, closed stores, dirty and dying." A once thriving industrial port on Lake Michigan, about 30 miles north of Chicago, Waukegan struggled to survive the death of industry in the 1980s as government and big business savagely fought to reinvent the U.S. into a de-unionized, service-sector economy. It's been Latino-powered labor that has brought new life to the city, swelling its tax base with new construction, infrastructure repair and a wave of vibrant new Latino businesses. But like a cornered animal, fearing displacement, the old white oligarchy is waging war to hold onto its power. Only now, the muted majority is in motion across Waukegan and will not be muted for long. "Eighty percent of Waukegan will not let 20 percent show them what their rights are," declared José Gudino of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA). LCLAA is among a growing number of Latino groups, including Tonatico Social Club, Asociación Latina del Condado de Lake (Latino Association of Lake County), Hondureños Unidos, Club La Luz and Comercios Latinos (Latino Businesses) of Waukegan, that have united against the measure. From this coalition, calls have risen to boycott the city of Waukegan. Resident sympathizers say they will patronize only those businesses displaying orange flyers expressing their opposition to proposition 287(g). Immigrant rights supporters say voter registration campaigns, labor alliances and independent political activity in future elections will be part of a relentless opposition, both locally and nationally, to 287 (g). Though locked out of the city they've built, the Latino workers of Waukegan are seeing this struggle as their weapon against the forces of violence and silence. For them, the battle is a victory in itself. Benjamin Cline contributed to this story.
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| The Immigrant Rights Movement at a Crossroads Mass Street Protest, Economic Boycotts and Civil Disobedience are Imperative to Stop Corporate Designed Immigration Reform By Javier Rodriguez to the US Social Forum. Atlanta-Georgia June 28, 2007 After the last round of successful May Day 2007 mobilizations, the national debate on immigration reform legislation has once again heated up and continues unabated. However, it is clear the legislation now in the senate and the one waiting to be addressed in the lower house are not pro immigrant, nor pro worker immigration reform. Under both proposals, the legalization offer is a torturous expensive process of 10 to 15 years wait for the coveted "Green Card". Combined with a guest worker program, a destruction of the family unity concept for a point system and of course the so called national security frame work which endangers civil and human rights standards, making mass persecution and the criminalization of immigrants palatable. There is really no trade off. And liberals as well as some progressives in our ranks are singing the tune that every country has a right to protect its borders, surrealistically forgetting that it is the people of the poverty stricken sending countries of the world who are in need of protection from the criminal appetite of the transnational corporations and the American empire. As you, the forces of the US Social Forum meet here in Atlanta; the US Senate has reentered debate for the future of immigrants. Essentially, as has been said before, it is corporate designed legislation to maintain a sector that annually produces $997,000 millions in value, working in the informal economy, in suspension of their basic human rights, leaving them politically vulnerable and brutally exploitable. In other words continue the "transnational corporate fiesta". More than ever the challenge of what is to be done comes to the fore. Either the people and its organized forces conform to the crumbs on the negotiating table or fight back. The primary options at this juncture essentially come down to two: for the process to continue and strive to amend the proposals because otherwise the presidential campaign will offset anything related to immigrants and another 5 to 10 years will pass for another opportunity like this. This sector is composed of the largest block of the Latino establishment, headed by the National Council of La Raza, the Change to Win Coalition, primarily SEIU and HERE-Unite, the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, big business groups like the American Chamber of Commerce, the Essential Working, Coalition and the Catholic Church. The other to plainly kill the bill informally, coalesces several sectors, including, the AFL-CIO, Southwest Voters, and about 75% of the immigrant rights groups, NALACC, NNIRR, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, etc. In the base, the millions of immigrants themselves are in a quandary. The quest to visit the homeland, have a permit, work legal, school education, the security of the family, not to have the fear of being deported on their back all are paramount. But for the future of the family, of the millions more to come and of the whole working class in the US is also the stakes are also very high. The results will set the path for a higher or a lower standard of living for all for years to come. Without a doubt the country's ruling elite have analyzed the Immigration Reform Act-IRCA of 1986, which generously legalized several million immigrants, and it only stipulated a one-year wait for the coveted green card. Obviously, as President Ronald Reagan admitted years later, they don't want to repeat the same mistake. For us it's[MG1], imperative to look at the last stage in the history of that process. It was 1982 and the US Supreme Court ruled on the Class Action Case "Silva Vs INS" popularly known as the Silva Letter. It was an official government documents which protecte4d over 100,000 immigrants and their families from deportation. As the case resolved and only 20,000 got their permanent residency, the rest went up in arms. It was the explosion that signaled the beginning of a wave of mass protest. (Very similar to HR4437 and the mass reaction of 2006). The immigrant rights movement, founded in LA in 1968 by the Old Man Bert Corona qualitatively changed and met the challenge of the times. From 1982 to 1986 until President Ronald Reagan signed the Amnesty Law, the masses of undocumented immigrants, then an estimated 6 million in the country, organized and demonstrated militantly. We mounted the massive effort for amnesty unto the historical Jesse Jackson for President Campaign of 1984. It was the Democratic Primary in California, which I was directing in the state's Latino community. On May 19 of that year we held the largest ever-street protest for immigration rights, 10,000 in downtown LA and Jackson and my brother Antonio Rodriguez led it. It was for legalization, no raids and deportations and against the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Bill. That march agitated and galvanized the country. We then tactically had Jackson stay at the home of an undocumented immigrant female leader of the LA grass roots movement. That was a radical and highly symbolical move by the highest African American leader of the time. From there we catapulted to the San Francisco Democratic National Convention where several hundred Latino delegates frenetically demanded from the leadership to kill the bill. But what put the icing on the cake was civil disobedience. The offices of the top gurus of the National Democratic Party, the Law Firm of Mannat and Associates in Beverly Hills, were taken by 30 undocumented immigrants and leaders and held for several days. The Simpson-Mazzoli Bill was killed and replaced by IRCA 1986, the Simpson Rodino Law. Although it introduced employer sanctions and set four years of residency in the country to qualify, it was a generous amnesty. It empowered millions with a "a permit to work, a one year wait to get the green card and six total to gain citizenship and vote". It was the class action lawsuit, then the mass upsurge, the street heat, the presidential campaign, civil disobedience, a strategy and militant tactics and a radical leadership that did it. The rest is history. The message of this narration is obvious. In this potentially last stage of the present struggle for the empowerment of the millions of undocumented workers, the conditions for a more creative and militant expression to fight back have to be discussed and analyzed and logically placed into practice. In 2006, history was made when the largest mass movement in the history of this country came to be. It was also designed also to successfully embarrass the empire and we did it. And it was not spontaneous. It had a designed strategy based on the history of this movement since 1968 and also inherently based on the present national and international, political and social conditions including the use of the corporate mass media. Today, indisputably the gigantic struggle for immigration reform in the United States has been rich in its political and organizational expressions and legacy. This is reflected in its major historical accomplishments that above everything else have changed the collective psyque of the people towards the elusive goal of unity. It is an established fact that the slogan "Si Se Puede" is now a relative reachable reality. The immigrant rights movement and its principal protagonist, the immigrant worker, have generated respect and solidarity, not only here, inside the empire, but worldwide and May 1-International Workers Day is now imbedded as a workers holiday in the country where it was born. And it came in a grand scale with a 2006 May 1 National Great American Boycott that in Los Angeles alone, easily, almost all the industries where Latino immigrants labor, stopped a whopping 75% of the production, including the all important Harbor and Long Beach Ports. It was repeated in 2007 at a much lesser, but respectable level. The latest polls on the country's sentiments on immigrants and legalization clearly indicate a majority support for the legalization for immigrants. That translated means, a sentiment for the empowerment of the weakest sector of the working class, the globalize immigrant. Our people. Today this movement, on par with the developments in Latin America moving away from the neo liberalist economic model and against transnational imperial dominance, is once again at a crossroads. The millions who marched in 2006 and 2007 did so to demand their rights for immediate legalization and empowerment, not to continue being near second and third class and near slaves. We need to push the right buttons. Set the network of forces on the chosen targets, which could give premium political results that will essentially force the political establishment to concede. For this to advance, all targets in the political arena are fair game, including the Republicans, the Democrats, the Latino Establishment and brokers. The fundamental tactics of mass expression including, mass street demonstrations, the boycott and civil disobedience exist in our political memory and our history. It's ours. It belongs to the people. Respectfully Javier Rodriguez Media and Political Strategist March 25 Coalition and May 1 National Movement for Immigrant and Workers Rights June 28, 2007 jrodhdztf@hotmail. com
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