When we remember the
legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we are reminded of his strength in
speaking out against injustices which too often occur in the world. This past Martin Luther
King Day, 21 Enero 2013, DREAM ACTION
NIU and DeKalb High School’s Vanguardia Afirmativa de los Latin@s Unidos (VALU)
participated in a collective mass student demonstration on a bitter cold
Chicago Monday. The groups’
primary motivation for climbing out of bed on this subzero “free” school day
was to demand a moratorium on deportations. This moratorium would not only freeze
all deportation proceedings, but also place an immediate halt to the separation
of families -1,100
families per day, to be exact. From
its inception in 2008 and following its implementation under
the Obama Administration, Secure Communities (S-Comm) has been
responsible for the detention and deportation of hundreds of thousands of
undocumented individuals each year. As
a result of S-Comm, executed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
agents, from 2008 to 2012 the Obama administration has deported approximately
1.6 million persons, and just like the U.S. defense budget, this number is
rising every day. We have
seen this before.
In 1953,
Lieutenant General Joseph M. Swing was appointed Immigration and Naturalization
Service’s (INS) commissioner.[1] It was through this position that
Swing enacted his militaristic objective, “Operation Wetback,” to force
out the Mexican people. From 1953-59, 3.8 million Mexicans were deported.[2] Obama now has two choices:
the Barry Bonds method or the activist approach. Obama could chose to ‘juice up’ the
Immigration Industrial Complex in order to break deportation records, or he
could act using the powers he possesses to issue an Executive Order mandating a
moratorium on deportations (as ex-President Ronald Reagan did in the
1980s). For the skeptics
who are hesitant to ease deportation proceedings due to a fear of criminality
within the immigrant pool…
In
preliminary data for the January-March 2012 quarter collected by the
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, for example, just 14 percent of
those deported had any criminal record.* But, a closer look at the data shows
that just 4 percent of those deported had a so-called “aggravated
felon” on their record; [which is] an immigration court-specific
designation of crimes that can include crimes as serious as rape and murder,
but has also been expanded to include violations like theft or non-violent drug
offenses.[3]
This data presents immigrants in a much
more honest and accurate light, as opposed to the demonized image which the
corporate media paints of the stereotypical immigrant. Unfortunately, S-Comm continues to
deport immigrants in mass while also violating human rights, filling jail cells
and detention centers, and denying due process. More than any other group
in the US, Latin@s are targeted by this policy. In addition to being racially profiled
by federal agents, Latin@s in some states, notably Arizona, are now legally
targeted by state officials thanks to the US Supreme Court’s decision to keep
SB 1070, and therefore other copycat laws like it, constitutional. SB 1070 not only pushes fear
into the barrios, but it also questions the very existence of Latin@s in the U.S.
As Sean Arce suggests, “[SB
1070] serves as an attack on our own being, our physicalness…questioning our
very place - the spaces which we live - and it serves as a threat to our safety
and [the safety of] our community.”[4]
So, what
does an undocumented person look like? The
corporate media would suggest that an undocumented person is a Latin@ immigrant
who _____and____. One can
easily fill in the blanks with the dehumanizing rhetoric used by the corporate
media which spits out like oil on a hot surface. As one NPR report reveals, more than
one percent of the people caught up in ICE’s rush to deport are U.S. citizens.
According to a research report from the University of California Berkeley School
of Law, from 2008 to April 2011, “approximately 3,600 United
States citizens have been arrested by ICE through the Secure Communities
program …and more than one-third (39%) of individuals arrested through
Secure communities report that they have a U.S. citizen spouse or
child." Significantly, this means ICE has the authority to decide whether a
person looks “deportable,” and therefore worthy of pursuit and deportation. The
UC Berkeley report also indicates that, “Latin@s comprise 93% of individuals
arrested through Secure Communities, though they only comprise 77% of the
undocumented population in the United States,” certainly suggesting a
pattern of racial profiling.
As
a human being and a Latino, I find these figures to be unjust. Regardless
of our political leanings, we can see the negative consequences of separating
families. Our community is under attack. My hermanit@s are growing up
without one or both parents, parents who linger in detention centers or are
exiled from the U.S. entirely. 1,100 families separated from each other every day
is 1,100 too many; therefore, we must demand a moratorium on
deportations. This moratorium must be called while Obama and
the bipartisan Senate committee discuss the long process towards comprehensive
immigration reform. Both President Obama and
the bipartisan Senate committee see the need to enforce border security.
If we investigate this ‘need,’ we will find that "the federal
government spent $18 billion last year [2011] on border security, which is more
than the combined budgets of the FBI, the Marshals Service, the Secret
Service, the DEA, [and] the ATF…. [T]heir total budgets were only $14
billion."[5]
Abuse of power,
questionable practices, misuse of funds, and calls of racism all speak to our
need to closely watch just how this immense fund is spent. For example, in 2010, Anastasio
Hernandez Rojas was beaten and tasered to death by a dozen Border Patrol
agents. Recently, sixteen members of
Congress have called for investigations into Rojas’
murder and to the numerous complaints of Border Patrol agent misconduct and human
rights violations. To add insult to
injury, the agency has also been caught on film, kicking and destroying life-saving
water placed in the desert by humanitarian groups such as No
Mas Muertos. As similar news reports
rush out across the nation, Latin@s face a media blitz which portrays their
communities as criminals. As Marco
Portales suggests, “both [TV and reality] mutually shape, and influence each
other…For this reason, what happens in television is extremely important for
Latinos, American society, and the world.”[6]
If Latin@s
continue to be targeted due to the sheer fact that they, regardless of
citizenship, are Latin@, then why not stand together rather than alone in this
struggle? Why not use these discriminatory practices- racial profiling,
separation of families, and destruction of communities- as an opportunity to
unite and fight back, peacefully, in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
In this way, we must be moved by the philosophy of the banned Mexican American
Studies Program, the philosophy of “In
Lak Ech” - Tu eres mi otro yo; Si te
hago daño a ti, me hago daño a mí mismo; Si te amo y respeto, me amo y respeto
yo. In other words, an injury to one is an injury to all. As we
work in solidarity, we must lift one another as we climb.
To dive deeper is to see what the banning of
our knowledge has done to the youth of Tucson.
The Tucson Mexican American Studies (MAS) students witnessed their
beloved MAS program become terminated by an ignorant and Eurocentric school
board. Latin@ historical narratives,
literature, and art were heavily scrutinized and eventually banned by those who
could not decipher the difference between Reies Lopez Tijerina and Marco Rubio
(if you cannot either, then this is precisely why we need these programs). SB 2281 officially banned the MAS program and
with this law, our place within society became more cemented into the concrete
wall of outsiders and invaders. Our
youth must now be taught the 3-D model of Western education – distortion,
deletion, and denial. What message is our youth of color receiving from these
laws? The message is that they are not
wanted, respected, appreciated, and have nothing to offer.
However, this
story has a happy ending. On the evening
of MLK Day, the VALU and DREAM ACTION NIU students defeated the cold by
participating in a lecture presentation given by Sean Arce (co-founder of the
banned Tucson Arizona Mexican American Studies) and Jose Gonzalez (ex-MAS
teacher) at DePaul University. In the
spirit of MLK Day, both Arce and Gonzalez shared precious knowledge and pushed
concepts of radical self love in order to deal with the historical trauma that we
as colonized people have to endure. The
lecture served as an important reminder to reflect on our complex and elaborate
past which will provide a foundation for our future struggles and triumphs. Through
this year’s commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, VALU and DREAM
ACTION NIU students succeeded in moving parallel to Dr. King’s philosophy of advocacy,
peace and social justice for all.
[1] Rodolfo Acuña, “Occupied
America: A History of Chicanos,” (New York: Longman, 2000), pg 304.
[2] Lisa Magaña, “Straddling
the Border: Immigration Policy and the INS,” (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2003), pg. 18.
[3] Julianne Hing, “Who
Are These ‘Gangbangers’ Obama’s So Proud Of Deporting,” Colorlines.com, October 17 2012, http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/10/who_are_those_gangbangers_obamas_so_proud_of_deporting.html
*(Immigration violations are typically considered civil
violations, and do not constitute a criminal offense).
[4] Sean Arce and
Jose Gonzalez, “Sean Arce and Jose Gonzalez Speak at Depaul University,”
Librotraficante Flo-pez, January 21, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ7AvsaBYh4.
[5] Juan Gonzalez, “Obama
Offers Hope on Immigration Reform, But Emphasis on Enforcement Portends More
Criminalization,” DemocracyNow,
January 31, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/31/obama_offers_hope_on_immigration_reform.
[6] Marco Portales, “Crowding Out Latinos:
Mexican Americans in the Public Consciousness,” (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2000), pg 56 – 58.
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