2. Movement of communities towards asserting local autonomy, from La Voz de Aztlan
3rd April 2006
posting 2. to On the Ground, from La Voz de Aztlan, posted by George Salzman
to become an “Immigrant Sanctuary”
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - March 24, 2006 - (ACN) Yet another city council in Alta California has voted to become an “Immigrant Sanctuary”. Coachella, a city 125 miles east of Los Angeles and with 30,957 residents, passed a resolution that states “the city will provide a safe, healthy and dignified place to live for its immigrant communities, regardless of immigration status.”
Coachella Mayor Jesse Villarreal said that the undocumented immigrants living in the city can rest easy knowing that the local police won’t act as border patrol and turn them in. The resolution will also protect US citizens of Mexican descent from being harassed by the police who could mistake them of being undocumented. . The city populations is 97% Latino.
The “Immigrant Sanctuary Movement” is rapidly expanding in Alta California with the cities of Maywood, Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Pomona and San Francisco having already passed similar measures. The city council resolutions are attempts to prevent local police from arresting the undocumented if the anti-immigrant legislation presently before the US Senate passes.
The Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, before the U.S. Senate, authorizes local authorities to enforce federal immigration law, proposes building a $2 million fence along the border and criminalizes those who help the undocumented. It would also authorize police agencies to arrest undocumented immigrants.
The Coachella resolution passed by its city council is credited to the efforts of the Comite Latino that attended the Mexicano/Latino Leadership Immigration Summit in Riverside. At that summit meeting the Vice Mayor of the City of Maywood, Felipe Aguirre, gave a presentation on how his city became an “Immigrant Sanctuary”. His presentation was very inspirational and it gave birth to the immigrant sanctuary movement. The federal government has threaten to stop the funding for certain city programs but Vice Mayor Aguirre simply told the feds, “Keep your money!”
The “Immigrant Sanctuary Movement” within the various cities will most probably join up with efforts by the Catholic Church. Los Angeles Cardinal Rogelio Mahony has gone on record saying that if the “Sensenbrenner Legislation” passes, he will instructs his priests to disobey certain measures of the proposed law that makes it a criminal act to help undocumented people in need. We may be witnessing the beginning of massive civil disobedience by huge numbers of people, organizations and institutions.
The City of Coachella has a long history revolving around agriculture. Cesar Chavez once marched through the city in his struggle for farm worker rights and today the area’s agricultural industry still relies mostly on Mexican and Mexican-American workers.
April 4th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Subject: Re: New actions: Latinos assert human rights in U.S.
From: Brad Bellows <>
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 10:33:53 -0400
To: George Salzman <
George,
It’s been interesting to follow the immigration debate from this side of the border over the past few weeks, and especially to observe the strange bedfellows that have emerged.
It’s of course obvious that illegal immigrants are among the most hardworking, wonderful people we have, and also massively exploited on both sides of the border. At the same time it seems to me it’s clearly in the interest of elites on both sides of the border to encourage continued illegal immigration. For wealthy Americans immigrants help to depress wages for all lower tier workers, while providing a vast range of services that would otherwise become inconveniently costly - from lawn care to child care. For Mexican elites, US emigration provides a convenient “safety valve” that allows a grossly unjust economic structure to continue relatively unchallenged. If the US border were sealed, there would be a revolution in Mexico, something that would be almost as threatening to US elites as to those in Mexico.
The losers in the current regime are poor Americans who are forced to compete with desperate Mexicans and of course the Mexicans themselves who must live in the shadows, with no civil or economic rights, just to feed their families. What could be better for the elites on both sides of the border?
Frankly, these observations make me look with skepticism on current efforts to facilitate and normalize immigration from Mexico. Wouldn’t it be better to protect our own poor workers and increase pressure on Mexico to make the fundamental changes that are needed to create real social justice for its citizens? Mexico is poor because it’s run by a kleptocracy that won’t relinquish power until it’s forced to. My forecast is that the borders will remain open, in the name of humanitarian concern, so the current exploitation can continue unabated.
Brad
Cambridge MA