Immigrants Reclaim May Day Tradition
In Numerous Rallies for Their Rights

A huge turnout of immigrants, from coast-to-coast, participated in sit-downs, marches, street demonstrations and other forms of protest on May 1 (May Day), reclaiming a tradition of American labor that dates back to 1886, when unions in Chicago began a nationwide campaign for the eight-hour day.

A year ago on May Day, several million immigrant workers took part in a nation-wide mobilization, “The Great American Boycott,” that included work stoppages, marches and massive street demonstrations, in which they dramatized their demands for human rights, equality and social justice.

Most immigrants come from Mexico and Latin-American countries where workers have honored May Day as a day of International Workers’ Solidarity. In the United States, for various historic circumstances, the AFL-CIO abandoned the worldwide celebration of May Day in favor of Labor Day.

The demands of some 12 million immigrants who now reside in the United States are being popularized by the Immigrant Solidarity Network. They are expressed clearly and succinctly, based on the theme: “We Are All Humans! No One Is Illegal!”

(1) No to anti-immigrant legislation and the criminalization of immigrant communities.

(2) No to militarization of the border.

(3) No to immigrant detention and deportation.

(4) No to the guest worker program.

(5) No to employer sanction and “no match” letters.

(6) Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

(7) Yes to speedy family unification.

(8) Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.

(9) Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.

(10) Yes to the education and LGBT immigrant legislation.

The immigrants who participated in the protest demonstrations took risks that they might be picked up by the FBI or agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and quickly deported. There appears to be a growing campaign to terrorize the 12 million immigrants, who have been integrated into our economy and hold down jobs in agriculture, construction, health care and a variety of service industries.

In 2006, the government deported more than 220,000 “illegals,” an increase of 37,000 over the preceding year. Raids have been conducted in factories, and immigrants who do no have the necessary papers have been detained for deportation. Immigration authorities have broken up families to carry out deportation orders.

There have been demands to deny immigrants access to health care or education for their children or their right to Social Security, even though they are employed and pay taxes to the city, state and federal government. They are treated like criminals, who never know the moment when they can be seized, detained and forced to leave the country, often without their family.

Immigrants are strongly opposed to President Bush’s plan for a worker “guest” program, under which workers from outside the U.S. border would be allowed to work for a three-year period under contract with employers. They also oppose his “path to ccitizenship” plan as harsh and unacceptable

There are more than 150 bills on immigration that have been submitted by Senators and Representatives. However, the only approach that has received much attention would be tough on illegal immigrants, and offer a path to citizenship that would require substantial fines, trips back home and other penalties.

Most national polls show people in the U.S. are overwhelmingly supportive of an immigration plan that would allow those already in the country illegally to stay, work and earn their way to legal status.

Our attitude toward immigrants is contradictory. On the one hand, we want to punish and get rid of them, On the other hand, we want to bring in 400,000 of them, because some American businesses say they can’t function without their labor.

It makes no sense to single out a group of 12 million people and insist on persecuting them as common criminals. We simply can’t make millions of undocumented people disappear, no matter what we do. The only result of such retroactive and vindictive behavior is to build up a growing anti-American anger, both within our borders and around the world.

We can be sure that the campaign for fair treatment of immigrants will grow stronger and more demonstrative unless Congress also pays attention to their concerns.

Our two weekly columns and their archives (LaborTalk and The World of Labor) can be viewed and downloaded at our website: www.laboreducator.org.