Immigration I
I just read an article in your June 10 edition on INS raids in the Twin Cities. I must admit the "Bosses" and the INS sure do seem to be co-conspirators, and the deceitful and dehumanizing way the INS is presenting itself is appalling. I have a question, though, regarding illegal foreign workers in our union factories and plants. I thought the whole idea behind unions is to protect the workers from being exploited by the bosses. Isn't allowing non-tax paying foreign nationals to work in place of union brothers and sisters self-defeating? I am in no way defending the trampling of human rights and Gestapo tactics, but don't you think trying to organize Mexico would be a more productive solution then simply defending the illegal practice of working with out papers?

Brian McGarity

from e-mail

Immigration II
The position set forth by Terry Coggan in his essay " Immigration is a right" is confusing. He seems to defend the right of anyone to immigrate to New Zealand, but he also defends the land rights of the Maoris, which means their right to stop anyone from immigrating into their land without their permission. This is a contradiction which needs to be explained. If his point is the that capitalists should not be allowed to control immigration for their pursuit of private property, I heartily agree. But if he makes the right of anyone to go and live where they please into a sacred principle, he is being absurd.

Is Cuba supposed to allow unlimited immigration from Haiti and other neighboring countries? Even when we have world-wide socialism, where everyone who can work will be required to have some useful occupation, if there are no jobs available in an area people will not be allowed to immigrate there to live and work. And there will be other restrictions on immigration, such as the effect people and their activities will have on the environment.

We need to develop international labor solidarity to build up the working class and the economies of all countries, as well as demand that all residents of a country should have equal rights, even "illegal" immigrants. Many individual capitalists favor unlimited immigration, because they can use the enlarged surplus labor pool to drive wages down. But the capitalists-as-a- class (the capitalist state) fears unlimited immigration, since it brings in masses of people who have no loyalty to their capitalist state, they wonder what all the Mexican immigrants will do, if it becomes necessary for the United States to intervene militarily in Mexico to keep that country under control.

This whole problem of immigration is very complex, and interwoven with the problems of nationalism and ethnic identity, as well as who "owns" or controls the land and water and other natural resources in different parts of the world. These problems call for different tactics to fit different circumstances. One only causes confusion by oversimplifying these problems, and setting up slogans and making them into principles instead of the tactics they really are.

A prisoner

Woodbourne, New York  
 
 
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