(5/15/06: Millions
of immigrants have been in the streets over the last two months
demanding to be
treated with the dignity and respect that all human beings deserve.
Bush gave his answer tonight. He said, ‘) every human being has dignity
and
value no matter what their citizenship papers say.’ And what is Bush’s
definition of dignity and value for immigrants? Troops at the border,
border militarization with even more
deaths, a national identification card with biometric information,
organizing
local police to capture and detain immigrants, and legalization of an
apartheid
system for immigrant workers. Cold
hearted repression and exploitation.
Question: What in the world is
Bush’s definition of disrespect and worthlessness?
Bush laid out his plan. Up
to 6,000 National Guard troops will be deployed to the southern border. Think about what this means. Bush is treating the southern border area as
a war zone where the military must be used against starving people who are
crossing the border to survive! No, no,
no!
A precedent is being set here to use the military for domestic law
enforcement under the guise of stopping ‘illegal immigration.’ Again, given
everything the Bush regime is doing, think about what is means for what time it
is in this country.
At the border, the government will construct new high tech fences in
urban areas, build new roads and barriers in rural areas, install motion
sensors and infrared cameras, and utilize unmanned aerial vehicles. All of this will lead to even more
immigrants dying at the border. Over
the last ten years with the militarization of the border, the number of people
dying as they cross has skyrocketed. Over 4,000 have died based on the bodies
that have been recovered. Many more
bodies have never been found. Why have
these people died? Because the border militarization has been designed to force
people to cross through the most dangerous areas of the deserts, mountains and
rivers so as to deter them from crossing.
That is the point! What is
Bush’s response to people fleeing hunger and starvation? Herding them into even more danger where
many will die.
This goes along with stepped up police state measures. Local law enforcement will be trained to
apprehend and detain undocumented immigrants.
Now, the local police will be going around and demanding that immigrants
and a lot of other people show the police their papers. Legal immigrants will be given a national
identification card with biometric information such as digital
fingerprinting. All of this is in the
context of the whole Bush agenda of illegitimate wars, indefinite detention,
repression and torture. And this is on
top of the almost daily revelations of massive spying on people in this
country, monitoring of phone calls and e-mails, analysis of shopping habits and
who knows what more. Can these new measures, along with deploying the military
within this country, be anything but bad?
And what about Bush’s proposal for a guest worker program? What is the difference between this and
apartheid in South Africa? There, Black
people could come into the white areas to work but without the same rights as
white people so they could be horribly exploited and could not be there after
dark. In this case, people would come
to this country to work but without the same rights as everyone else so they
could be horribly exploited and then be kicked out after a few years. Again, I ask, what is the difference?
The military deployed within the U.S., ‘show me your papers’ police,
thousands of starving people driven to their deaths, biometric identification
cards, and legalized apartheid. This is
not a place where anyone of conscience should want to live. As we say in the Call for the World Can’t
Wait, Drive Out the Bush Regime!,
‘People look at all this and think of Hitler ( and they are right to do
so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in
a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in
the balance.’