By Kristin Bricker
On February 10, 2006, a van carrying 28 undocumented immigrants hit a spike strip laid by the US Border Patrol on Rt. 905 in San Diego. The spike strip flattened at least one tire while the van was traveling at "close to freeway speed," causing it to jump a guardrail and careen down an embankment, ejecting and scattering passengers in a scene that San Diego Fire-Rescue's spokesman likened to "a mini war zone." Twenty-one passengers were injured, eight seriously. And this wasn't the first time. According to the The San Diego Union-Tribune, similar chases of undocumented immigrants have led to more than 50 traffic accidents in San Diego and Imperial counties since 1993, killing 75 people and injuring over 500.
No one can deny that our immigration policy is broken. Now immigrant rights groups and armed right-wing militias are engaged in a showdown over how to fix it. In February, Border Angels and Gente Unida (People United) crisscrossed the country on a "March for Migrants" in opposition to HR 4437, the "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act" that passed the House and is expected to go before the Senate soon. The Minutemen, on the other hand, left their binoculars and firearms in Arizona and headed to Washington, DC, to rally and lobby Congress to pass the anti-immigrant legislation that will criminalize doctors, social workers, and charities that help undocumented immigrants.
The Border Angels is one such charity that will face jail time under HR 4437. The organization began in the mid-1980s as an outreach program of several San Diego religious groups. The gospel is their motto: "For I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink." (Matthew 25:35). Volunteer Angels bring water, food, and blankets to life-saving stations in the desert in an attempt to stem the growing number of migrant deaths at the Mexico-U.S. border. Over 4,000 migrants have died since October 1994, when the Defense Department's Operation Gatekeeper erected a steel wall made from landing platforms used in the first Gulf War. Rather than reducing the number of illegal immigrants, Gatekeeper has shifted migration flows to the harsh mountains and desert east of San Diego, resulting in a 500% increase in border deaths.
The Minuteman Project is notorious for its vigilante patrols of the U.S.-Mexico border. Many Minutemen are armed and some have humiliated detained migrants or held them at gunpoint. However, the militia's biggest impact may be in Congress. The Minutemen joined with other anti-immigrant organizations, and, with the support of racist groups such as the National Alliance, Ranch Rescue, and English First, they are lobbying for the passage of HR 4437, which will extend the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, increase the penalty for being an undocumented immigrant from a civil violation to a felony, and potentially criminalize doctors, social workers, members of the clergy, and charities for assisting undocumented immigrants.
The criminalization of undocumented immigrants and doctors who treat them is particularly disturbing. A handful of states passed legislation in the 1990s that similarly required doctors to play the role of law enforcement by reporting pregnant drug users' positive test results to the police for prosecution. The Supreme Court eventually struck down the laws because they were a violation of patient-doctor confidentiality, and because the American Medical Association argued that the laws harmed women and their fetuses by deterring drug users from seeking prenatal care and drug treatment. Enrique Morones, the executive director of Border Angels, says that while the Supreme Court may also strike down this section of HR 4437, the fact that lawmakers even proposed it is "a tremendous statement in racism." Furthermore, like the hundreds of pregnant women who delivered their babies in prison prior to the Supreme Court ruling, immigrants and doctors will suffer while battles rage in the courts for years.
The effect HR 4437 will have on asylum seekers is also troubling. It will lengthen the amount of time those who enter the US illegally are held in jail and make it easier to deport them before an asylum hearing. The law also expands the aggravated felony category to include being in the US illegally (currently a civil offense) as well as a variety of misdemeanor crimes such as drunk driving. Asylum seekers convicted of an aggravated felony will be permanently barred from seeking permanent resident status. Given that asylum seekers find themselves in grave danger in their home countries, many travel with fake documents and enter the US illegally, committing an aggravated felony under HR 4437. Thus, this bill jeopardizes our obligation to asylum seekers under international law.
HR 4437 is the right's obvious attempt to further capitalize on 9-11 by equating immigrants with terrorists. Daniel Morales from Gente Unida says that conservatives are using immigration as a wedge issue in the same way they used gay marriage during the 2004 elections. In reality, HR 4437 does little to nothing to address the security failures that led to the terrorist attacks. Congress members who support the bill, such as Delaware's Mike Castle, like to point out that the majority of the 9-11 hijackers were in the country illegally. What they choose to ignore is that most of them entered the country legally. Existing mechanisms were not enforced when the hijackers overstayed their visas. Furthermore, as Morones points out, "Had the wall on the Mexico-U.S. border been 100 feet high, September 11 still would have happened." HR 4437 is designed to merely make us feel safer while inflicting further suffering on the Latino migrant workers who hold up our economy.
HR 4437 does nothing to address the reasons migrants risk their lives to cross the border. It doesn't stop the US government from creating conflict zones or funding military regimes, which leads to an influx of refugees. It doesn't stop NAFTA from decimating the Mexican economy, causing former farmers to seek work in the US. It doesn't stop the US from pursuing this failed policy for other countries through the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. It also doesn't stop restaurant kitchens across the country from using cheap undocumented labor, or force slaughterhouses to improve safety so that more US citizens would work in them, or close the legal loophole that allows big agriculture to pay farm workers a fraction of the minimum wage. Would any Minuteman take a job that pays 45 cents for every 32 pounds of tomatoes picked during a grueling 12-hour shift in the burning sun?
Until US employers stop capitalizing on the misfortunes of undocumented immigrants, start paying living wages, and bring all workplaces up to health and safety codes, the most virulently xenophobic bills will not stop the influx of immigrants—it will only cause more to die trying. Immigrants don't take jobs that would otherwise be filled by citizens, and they don't depress wages—capitalists do. Why else would Perdue Chicken oppose HR 4437? Tyson Foods executives weren't smuggling undocumented immigrants to work in their plants because of a severe shortage of available labor here in the US. They did it because they don't want to pay minimum wage.
In the end, HR 4437 is a racist, xenophobic wolf in a pro-national security sheep's clothing. Congress should stop labeling immigrants as terrorists and instead pass earned legalization laws that reward the full rights of citizenship to the migrant workers who support our economy. After all, Al Qaeda's roots can't be traced to Mexico. Its humble beginnings are right here in Washington, DC, on the CIA payroll.
For more information:
http://www.borderangels.org
http://www.stopgatekeeper.org
http://www.ilrc.org/HR4437.html
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