Post by blackcrowheart on Oct 3, 2007 13:36:01 GMT -5
Narrow immigration debate fails indigenous peoples
Indian Country Today
Much in the world has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, when America effectively lost its grip as the last superpower. Despite domestic and foreign policies generated by the Bush administration' s ''war on terror'' to buttress the United States against further attacks, the walls constructed to keep us safe continue to close in. Burgeoning growth in the most populous countries, diminishing natural resources and a widening of the gap between rich and poor have contributed to the destabilization of world indigenous economies, including those within the United States. Globalization, the corporate movement fueled by the United States to privatize the world's natural resources, is the new religion imposing itself on indigenous peoples.
For the millions of Latin American indigenous people migrating northward, the diaspora is stimulated by destruction of the land tenure by Indian farmers, known as ejidos. State-sanctioned misuse and theft of indigenous-controll ed lands under the guise of the North American Free Trade Agreement have been the most significant catalysts of the explosion of ''illegal'' immigrants into the United States.
NAFTA was supposed to level the playing the field for large and small economies to participate in global trading, eliminating the need for northern immigration. But as with most treaties, the promised benefits never materialized. Instead, Latin American farmland was exposed to corporate agribusiness, displacing millions of indigenous and mestizo peasant farmers. While U.S. growers of agricultural staples like corn and beans, often genetically modified and mass-produced, enjoyed government subsidies, the modest indigenous subsistence farmers received nothing. Without land to work or love, impoverished but able-bodied farmers flooded urban industrial centers and moved north seeking work.
The resulting poverty of this failed exercise in open-market globalization drove the Indian peasantry north to the United States by the hundreds of thousands. Once here, the immigrants passing legally or illegally - so-called ''illegal aliens,'' a fear-mongering term if there ever was one - both overwhelmed the social services of U.S. cities (but also created new economic and cultural wealth within them). These consequences, ignored by drafters of the compact, were entirely foreseen by indigenous and non-Native students of history, social scientists, the ethnic media and global observers, to name but a few of its early opponents.
President Bush's recent defense of an immigration reform bill being debated in the Senate, likely his final major domestic initiative, gave no mention of the contributing social and economic factors to widespread immigration to the United States. The bipartisan bill has relatively broad legislative and public support. According to polls conducted by The New York Times, the majority of those asked support the major provisions in the bill, which includes a guest worker program, priority-based admission of immigrants, requirements for visa renewals and time-based applications for legal status of undocumented individuals. But like most of the government policy originated in the Bush administration, the bill lacks a sense of history, justice and global impact. Most importantly, it fails to answer the question of why so many poor people leave their families, homelands and cultural traditions for the mere promise of prosperity elsewhere.
The president acknowledged the role of immigrants in the nation's history, but one gets the sense he wasn't referring to the massive flow of distinctly brown-skinned people whose arrivals, illegal or not, prompted the national debate in the first place. Utilizing well-worn political jujitsu characteristic of his administration, Bush immediately denounced criticism of the bill as ''empty rhetoric'' designed to ''frighten our fellow citizens.'' If there were no reaction shots of stunned audience members, it was probably because the president was speaking from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. This is where the U.S. government trains agents who serve in 83 federal agencies, including those who work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They are agents on the domestic line of the successfully branded ''war on terror.''
The immigration reform bill targets enforcement of U.S. laws at the borders and the eventual documentation of migrant workers who enter the United States illegally. This we can all support, but the attitude behind this particular reform bill (others have failed in the not-so-distant past) is shortsighted arrogance. Said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who is set to chair the subcommittee that oversees immigration issues, of the bill: ''We have an opportunity to pass our plan to secure our borders, uphold our laws and strengthen our economy.'' It is not about social or economic justice, but constructing psychological and physical walls between us (good) and them (evil).
And President Bush: ''I'm deeply concerned about America losing its soul,'' he said at FLETC. ''I am worried that a backlash to newcomers would cause our country to lose its great capacity to assimilate newcomers.'' For the past five years, Bush and his administration have incited what amounts to civilian racial and ethnic profiling against individuals who may or may not seek to harm ''us,'' an intentionally vague term. Typically, Americans have been encouraged to be vigilant and on the lookout for dark-skinned, non-English- speaking persons, especially at border crossings and in populous metropolitan areas. Blurring the line between immigration at the southern border and terrorism is now coming home to roost as the nation's largest protests in the last year have been in support of immigrants' rights. Many people waved American flags and carried signs that read, ''We're not terrorists'' and ''We build your homes.''
Building walls and militarizing borders are significant facets of past failed government policies. These fortifications represent a mentality in the United States that belies its most popular and most repeated founding principles: justice and liberty for all. Generally, those inside feel contained, restrained and threatened, but not necessarily secure. These are sentiments missing from the national discourse.
Indian Country Today
Much in the world has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, when America effectively lost its grip as the last superpower. Despite domestic and foreign policies generated by the Bush administration' s ''war on terror'' to buttress the United States against further attacks, the walls constructed to keep us safe continue to close in. Burgeoning growth in the most populous countries, diminishing natural resources and a widening of the gap between rich and poor have contributed to the destabilization of world indigenous economies, including those within the United States. Globalization, the corporate movement fueled by the United States to privatize the world's natural resources, is the new religion imposing itself on indigenous peoples.
For the millions of Latin American indigenous people migrating northward, the diaspora is stimulated by destruction of the land tenure by Indian farmers, known as ejidos. State-sanctioned misuse and theft of indigenous-controll ed lands under the guise of the North American Free Trade Agreement have been the most significant catalysts of the explosion of ''illegal'' immigrants into the United States.
NAFTA was supposed to level the playing the field for large and small economies to participate in global trading, eliminating the need for northern immigration. But as with most treaties, the promised benefits never materialized. Instead, Latin American farmland was exposed to corporate agribusiness, displacing millions of indigenous and mestizo peasant farmers. While U.S. growers of agricultural staples like corn and beans, often genetically modified and mass-produced, enjoyed government subsidies, the modest indigenous subsistence farmers received nothing. Without land to work or love, impoverished but able-bodied farmers flooded urban industrial centers and moved north seeking work.
The resulting poverty of this failed exercise in open-market globalization drove the Indian peasantry north to the United States by the hundreds of thousands. Once here, the immigrants passing legally or illegally - so-called ''illegal aliens,'' a fear-mongering term if there ever was one - both overwhelmed the social services of U.S. cities (but also created new economic and cultural wealth within them). These consequences, ignored by drafters of the compact, were entirely foreseen by indigenous and non-Native students of history, social scientists, the ethnic media and global observers, to name but a few of its early opponents.
President Bush's recent defense of an immigration reform bill being debated in the Senate, likely his final major domestic initiative, gave no mention of the contributing social and economic factors to widespread immigration to the United States. The bipartisan bill has relatively broad legislative and public support. According to polls conducted by The New York Times, the majority of those asked support the major provisions in the bill, which includes a guest worker program, priority-based admission of immigrants, requirements for visa renewals and time-based applications for legal status of undocumented individuals. But like most of the government policy originated in the Bush administration, the bill lacks a sense of history, justice and global impact. Most importantly, it fails to answer the question of why so many poor people leave their families, homelands and cultural traditions for the mere promise of prosperity elsewhere.
The president acknowledged the role of immigrants in the nation's history, but one gets the sense he wasn't referring to the massive flow of distinctly brown-skinned people whose arrivals, illegal or not, prompted the national debate in the first place. Utilizing well-worn political jujitsu characteristic of his administration, Bush immediately denounced criticism of the bill as ''empty rhetoric'' designed to ''frighten our fellow citizens.'' If there were no reaction shots of stunned audience members, it was probably because the president was speaking from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. This is where the U.S. government trains agents who serve in 83 federal agencies, including those who work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They are agents on the domestic line of the successfully branded ''war on terror.''
The immigration reform bill targets enforcement of U.S. laws at the borders and the eventual documentation of migrant workers who enter the United States illegally. This we can all support, but the attitude behind this particular reform bill (others have failed in the not-so-distant past) is shortsighted arrogance. Said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who is set to chair the subcommittee that oversees immigration issues, of the bill: ''We have an opportunity to pass our plan to secure our borders, uphold our laws and strengthen our economy.'' It is not about social or economic justice, but constructing psychological and physical walls between us (good) and them (evil).
And President Bush: ''I'm deeply concerned about America losing its soul,'' he said at FLETC. ''I am worried that a backlash to newcomers would cause our country to lose its great capacity to assimilate newcomers.'' For the past five years, Bush and his administration have incited what amounts to civilian racial and ethnic profiling against individuals who may or may not seek to harm ''us,'' an intentionally vague term. Typically, Americans have been encouraged to be vigilant and on the lookout for dark-skinned, non-English- speaking persons, especially at border crossings and in populous metropolitan areas. Blurring the line between immigration at the southern border and terrorism is now coming home to roost as the nation's largest protests in the last year have been in support of immigrants' rights. Many people waved American flags and carried signs that read, ''We're not terrorists'' and ''We build your homes.''
Building walls and militarizing borders are significant facets of past failed government policies. These fortifications represent a mentality in the United States that belies its most popular and most repeated founding principles: justice and liberty for all. Generally, those inside feel contained, restrained and threatened, but not necessarily secure. These are sentiments missing from the national discourse.