http://themilitant.com/2017/8117/811703.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 17 May 1, 2017
(front page)
Build May Day protests: ‘Stop deportations!
Amnesty now!’
BY SETH GALINSKY
“I urge working people to join me and turn out in force May 1. March,
rally, take off work, protest Washington’s moves against undocumented
workers,” Mary Martin, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Seattle
mayor, said April 19.
“And join in demanding amnesty for all immigrant workers here,” Martin
said. “That’s the road to unify the working class, to make us stronger
to combat the growing attacks by the bosses and their government on
workers and farmers today.”
In Seattle representatives from the M.L. King County Labor Council and
SEIU Healthcare 1199NW have joined in planning and building the May Day
march.
An increase in the arrests of undocumented workers in the first three
months of this year, along with threats by Attorney General Jeff
Sessions to “aggressively” prosecute immigrants, are fueling May Day
protests all across the country, already expected to be the biggest in
years.
SEIU 32BJ, which organizes thousands of building porters, maintenance
workers and cleaning staff in the Northeast, is promoting May Day
actions across the region. Their slogan is “Here to Stay.”
“Attacks on workers have been going hand in hand with attacks on
immigrants and immigrant workers,” 32BJ President Hector Figueroa told
the Militant April 18. “Immigrants should be treated with dignity and
respect.”
Teamsters Joint Council 16, which includes 27 union locals in the New
York area, has featured on its web page the call to turn out at New
York’s Foley Square at 5 p.m. May 1.
The New York Immigration Coalition, the immigrant-based community group
Make the Road, and numerous area unions have been building the protest.
In Wisconsin, Voces de la Frontera is organizing a march from Madison to
Milwaukee to join the May 1 Day Without Latinos, Immigrants and Refugees
action there.
According to figures obtained by the Washington Post, Immigration and
Customs Enforcement arrested 21,362 immigrants from January through
mid-March, reversing a two-year decline. Over 5,000 of the arrests —
almost one-quarter — involved grabbing immigrants whose only offense is
not having a valid visa.
The U.S. rulers have no intention of deporting most undocumented
workers. Their policy, carried out by Democratic and Republican
administrations alike, is to ensure a large layer of superexploited
workers the bosses can use to try and push down the value of workers’
labor power, seeking to maximize their profits and to compete more
successfully against their capitalist rivals.
Before 1996 workers deported as “voluntary departures” did not face
criminal charges if they returned to U.S. soil.
Bill Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act. This laid the basis for a shift to “forced
removals,” which steeply increases the penalties for “illegal re-entry”
into the United States. Four years later, during his last year in
office, Clinton deported 1.8 million immigrants, more than any president
in U.S. history.
Under the administrations of George W. Bush and Obama the shift to
“forced removals” took off.
In 2006 a bill was submitted to Congress making it a felony for an
undocumented worker just to be in the U.S. This was met by an outpouring
of millions on May Day that defeated the bill.
In 2011, under Obama, for the first time the majority of deportations
were labeled forced removals. By 2015 it was more than 70 percent.
Even more telling is the number of felony prosecutions on charges of
illegal re-entry — on average more than 35,000 every year of the Obama
administration.
By the time Obama left office more than 50 percent of all federal
criminal convictions involved immigration-related offenses. As a result,
one in four people in federal prison today is a previously deported
undocumented worker.
Attorney General Sessions told Customs and Border Protection agents in
Nogales, Arizona, April 11 the U.S. government will step up felony
prosecutions for re-entry and, wherever possible, tack on charges of
identity theft on any undocumented workers they pick up. This would add
at least two years to their sentence.
“One of the key slogans on May Day will be ‘We are workers, not
criminals,’” Mary Martin said. “Deportations aren’t popular among
working people. These are our co-workers, neighbors and co-combatants,
when we stand up against the attacks of the employers and their
government, cops, courts and prisons. All out May 1!”
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