It is high time for the labor movement to demand equal rights for all immigrants - now. Working people should condemn the latest attacks on the toiling majority that the U.S. Congress and Clinton administration are carrying through the immigration bill. One of the best ways to respond is to build the biggest possible turnout for the October 12 march on Washington.

The immigration law passed by the U.S. House of Representatives September 25 is an affront to human solidarity. It means more cops with more powers to intimidate and threaten undocumented workers. It denies millions of those who have papers basic social benefits, even health care for those with AIDS.

While vowing to veto a measure that would allow states to bar children of undocumented immigrants from public schools, President William Clinton has signed several laws already that go further than ever before in attacking immigrants rights -

from his "antiterror" law to the recent Welfare Reform Act. The differences among bourgeois politicians over the immigration law are entirely within the framework of scapegoating immigrants, and attempting to turn this section of the working class into people without rights. The current debate ranges from Republican Robert Dole's attempt to include the provision denying education to undocumented children, to liberal Democrat Edward Kennedy's call for "better methods to deny jobs to illegal immigrants."

The working-class must clearly state the opposite: No human being is illegal. The chauvinist "America first" line pushed by all these ruling-class spokesmen is used to divide and weaken the working class and soften its resistance to the onslaught of capitalist austerity.

The working class in the United States is becoming more international, and for this reason stronger, as toilers from around the world seek some relief from the devastation the world capitalist depression is causing in their homelands. The United States of America is becoming more of a Mexican country every day. Hallelujah!

For the capitalist class, national borders are defined by its currency and the area within which the bourgeoisie's army is based to defend that currency. And they want workers to believe we have a stake in defending their prerogatives and national boundaries. But the working class has no country. We are all wage-slaves for bosses who want us to compete among ourselves in order to steal the maximum surplus value from the wealth we produce and the employers appropriate.

The more porous these borders are today the better for workers in the United States and other imperialist citadels. Immigration brings together workers who have been through different experiences, and makes it more possible to unite and cut through the chauvinist demagogy used to divide us. It increases the possibilities to organize an international fight for jobs for all and other demands to defend labor from the capitalist exploiters.

The recent rallies of the strawberry pickers in California demanding a union contract and better wages and working conditions are a good example.

Lets get out in the streets October 12 and demand:

Equal rights for all immigrants!

Stop the deportations!

For a world without borders!  
 
 
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