Bernie Sanders’s immigration plan: a response from the front-lines of struggle
I live in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse areas in the country. I arrived from Mexico as a child in the post 9/11 period of social militarization, carried out under the veil of “national security”. This era has been marked by scapegoating and repression. Between the Republican Party's nauseatingly racist attacks on our civil rights and the shallow support from establishment Democrats, the voice of undocumented immigrants is generally ignored. This is especially the case when it does not fall in line with the Democratic Party, or if we go beyond merely registering our documented community to vote “blue”.
Despite being taxpayers, we are not allowed to vote, run for office or donate to, fundraise, or directly campaign for candidates in most local elections and no state or federal elections. As a result, civil society and immigrant rights organizations are constrained to limited legal challenges and appeals for legislative reform that are subordinated to the larger goals of the Democratic Party. This comes at the cost of independent action or accountability to immigrant communities. This marginalization in the electoral arena is why so many undocumented activists become frustrated by half-hearted and failed attempts at reform, while money continues to be consistently pumped into more repressive measures. We have to resort to direct actions such as interrupting politicians during public appearances or engaging in civil disobedience in order to be heard.
This marginalization also flies in the face of the fact that non-citizens were able to participate in local and state elections for more than a century after the establishment of the US, when the government was interested in attracting white immigrants to occupy indigenous land. By 1926, all states had banned noncitizens from local and state elections, but permanent residents were able to vote in federal elections until 1996.
That year, the Clinton Administration passed the Illegal Immigration Act, which began the criminalization of all immigrants regardless of status. The law made it a federal crime for non-citizens to vote in national elections, deeming any unlawful voting by non-citizens as a deportable offense. Since this law was passed, no candidate or politician has championed the right to vote for non-citizens today. The 1996 laws did more than take away suffrage from immigrants, it also eliminated most civil and legal rights regardless of status. It closed off most routes to legalization for undocumented people in the country, and expanded the list of deportable violations, setting in motion the beginning of the deportation machine that Obama solidified and Trump is now weaponizing.
In these xenophobic times, Bernie Sanders's immigration policy platform is the only one truly tapping into the demands of the immigrant rights movement and the popular sentiment for defending and strengthening civil rights. It includes: a moratorium on deportations, the breaking up of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in their current form, the abolition of private detention centers, a faster and more inclusive path to citizenship, and access to basis social services.
In these xenophobic times, Bernie Sanders's immigration policy platform is the only one truly tapping into the demands of the immigrant rights movement and the popular sentiment for defending and strengthening civil rights. It includes: a moratorium on deportations, the breaking up of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in their current form, the abolition of private detention centers, a faster and more inclusive path to citizenship, and access to basis social services. It also includes ending the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which keeps asylum seekers from entering the United States while awaiting review, the Muslim ban, and most importantly, the immediate reunification of separated children with their families. Lastly, it contains language that calls for a reckoning with US policies that are causing mass displacement.
Virtually all candidates have mentioned support for some kind of “comprehensive immigration reform” (CIR) proposal that would give people a conditional path to citizenship. In the past, CIR has been limited and whittled down to mean “enforcement first” or “enforcement only.” Sander's proposal establishes the basis for how reform can be re-framed and re-establish the basis for a humane, class-conscious, and justice-oriented approach to the issue. Sanders's support base and the immigrant rights movement should organize independent campaigns and coalitions around these demands throughout and beyond the 2020 election.
Pushed left on immigration issues
Make no mistake, Bernie Sanders is still against open borders but he shows to be an evolving candidate. He has taken a step to the left and abandoned previous positions supporting more enforcement. Well-meaning supporters of Bernie mistakenly credit him for radicalizing labor and other movements. However, his political trajectory, especially on issues of race and immigration actually highlight the opposite; the influence of undocumented people he’s hired for his campaign, radicalizing activists and self identified socialist and progressive Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’ve recently endorsed him.
Sanders's new platform–revealed shortly after Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement–includes many demands that Ocasio-Cortez herself was moved to incorporate after demands by independent grassroots organizations from her district. This includes organizations such as DRUM, Adhikaar, African Communities Together, and Queens Neighborhoods United, who have championed an end to the criminalization of migration. In fact, after meeting with these organizations, Ocasio-Cortez then announced and hosted a town hall meeting in Corona, Queens, where many of them were represented and where she officially announced her support for dismantling the Department of Homeland Security. She has also voiced support for repealing of the “Illegal Immigration Act”, ending private detention, and for investing for restorative social services to address the collective trauma immigrants have faced in the last decades. Bernie Sanders’s platform today includes those very demands, and is rightly focused on dismantling xenophobic enforcement practices built after 9/11.
From an electoral perspective, Sanders’s immigration platform will need to be taken up by whichever Democratic candidate who will ultimately go on to challenge Trump in 2020, since his re-election campaign will focus on increased immigrant repression.
Addressing US Imperialism in Latin America
Most interestingly to me, as a Mexican immigrant woman, is that his immigration plan includes intentions to “convene a hemispheric summit with the leaders of Latin American countries who are experiencing migration crises and develop actionable steps to stabilize the region.”
This is something no other candidate or election program has taken up. It opens up space to challenge US interventionist policies in Latin America and the Caribbean that have fueled mass displacement. Given the explosive revolts breaking out in many of the countries that continue to experience an “immigration crisis,” for example in Haití and Honduras, it is imperative that Bernie Sanders clarifies his position regarding these conflicts.
In 1980, when he was Mayor in Vermont, he rejected US intervention in Latin America, specifically in Nicaragua where the US supported the overthrow of the Sandinista government.
Sanders has yet to speak on the popular revolts and struggles presently taking place in Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Chile. He has had even less to say about the US-supported coup attempts in Venezuela, and has offered only a few words to oppose what is currently happening in Bolivia. Meanwhile, the state continues to aid right-wing movements and state repressive forces across the region in order to secure US corporate interests. If he cannot confront the realities of US imperialism, any effort to win justice for immigrants will be undercut.
Sanders has yet to speak on the popular revolts and struggles presently taking place in Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Chile. He has had even less to say about the US-supported coup attempts in Venezuela, and has offered only a few words to oppose what is currently happening in Bolivia. Meanwhile, the state continues to aid right-wing movements and state repressive forces across the region in order to secure US corporate interests. If he cannot confront the realities of US imperialism, any effort to win justice for immigrants will be undercut.
Even as Sanders’s immigration proposal includes an ambitious reckoning with the impact of US policies across Latin America, there is no mention of any plan to meet with the nations facing an immigration crisis in his foreign policy platform.
New Movements
Throughout the last decade self-identified indigenous, Black, Afro-Latinx, Caribbean, Central and South American, and indigenous activists have increasingly demanded and organized across spheres and sectors of society. This has extended from academia to the workplace, and from civil society to the media. Movements imbued with the politics of identity have shattered the idea that we live in a post-racial country and has led to a generation of people of color, immigrants, and indigenous people to be more willing to challenge the status quo.
Movements imbued with the politics of identity have shattered the idea that we live in a post-racial country and has led to a generation of people of color, immigrants, and indigenous people to be more willing to challenge the status quo.
From the immigrant youth movement, to Black Lives Matter, to Standing Rock; many of the fights against xenophobia, racism and environmental destruction are being led by those most affected by them–people of color.
In 2014, for example, hundreds of Mexicans across the US organized to welcome and fight alongside the parents of 43 Mexican indigenous students from Ayotzinapa that were disappeared by the Mexican military, which have been trained by US forces throughout the last decade.
One of the main demands of the parents and activists in the US included an end to “Plan Mérida” in Mexico, a US strategy to fund “anti-drug” enforcement training for military and police forces. This was modeled after the earlier “Plan Colombia”. These plans were supposed to win War on Drugs in their respective countries. The outcome has been very different. Since Plan Colombia (2001) and Plan Mérida (2008) were implemented, state violence against social movements, civilians, and migrants has intensified, impunity and corruption throughout the police and military have increased, and the drug trade continues to grow and expand.
Plan Mérida has since morphed into Plan Frontera Sur, a policy that facilitates the sharing of information, including biometrics, between the border enforcement agencies of the US, Mexico, and Central America. It has become the gateway for the US to export its violent and deadly border enforcement practices into the region. Plan Frontera Sur had been planned for years, however as more and more migrant caravans of asylum seekers made their way to the US from Central America, its implementation was accelerated. Earlier this year however, the Mexican Government swiftly implemented the plan a day after meeting with Trump about the “the crisis” at the US/Mexico border.
When the parents from Ayotzinapa toured the country to build political alliances with Mexicans and Mexican Americans, they were confronted with the reality of racism and xenophobia in the US. In local town halls, activists brought together local parents of victims of police brutality, and built powerful collective consciousness and connections regarding militarization, inter-imperialist collaboration and police impunity internationally. Many of the parents attended local protests by Black Lives Matter and released statements of support for Black people facing racism and police brutality in the US akin to the conditions that indigenous Mexicans face back home.
While those efforts did not result in the end to Plan Mérida, or justice for the victims of police brutality here or in Mexico, it imprinted on an entire layer of immigrants, Black, and Latinx youth the importance of intersectionality in struggles for justice on an international level. An emerging generation that is more diverse, more transnational, and more conscious of their political identity than generations past is making the connections between our immigration policies and imperialism. Latinx people are set to become a third of the US population by 2050 and are finding their voice to challenge racism against Latinxs in the US and its connection to imperialism in Latin America.
Over the last couple of years, Latinxs in the US have been politicized by Trump’s racist diatribes against immigrants, the revolts that have broken out throughout Latin America, and solidarity campaigns with people across the region. Recently, solidarity demonstrations have been organized in support of Central American caravans of migrants arriving at the border. Latinxs have also mobilized to protest the assassinations of environmentalists and left-leaning leaders and activists. In New York City, for instance, a vigil and protest was held in 2016 to honor the slain indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, who was murdered in Honduras in 2016. A similar event was organized again in 2018 after the socialist-feminist politician Marielle Franco was murdered in Brazil.
In the beginning of this year, Bolsonaro cancelled a scheduled trip to New York City, blaming protesters, mostly Latinx, who marched in Manhattan against his appearance. In July, mass protests in Puerto Rico calling for the governor’s resignation inspired similar protests in NYC, fueling a resurfacing of the question of Independence for the island. And just last month, protests across the US were held in solidarity with the Bolivian president Evo Morales, who was ousted in a coup led by right-wing forces aligned with the police and military. All of these actions have explicitly exposed US support for right-wing forces in Latin America that have tried to push back against the so-called “pink tide” of left-leaning governments.
Organizing through and beyond the elections
Sanders’s current platform is the result of people pushing him to the left. This includes people of color who challenged his politics on race in 2016. It also includes undocumented activists that challenged the Democratic Party as a whole to break with the repressive policies expanded under Obama and unleashed under Trump. It would not include such bold demands for accountability from enforcement agencies if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had not been challenged by grassroots activists and pushed to incorporate immigrant decriminalization into her own policy perspectives, and by extension, those of Bernie Sanders.
Today, immigrant rights activists must demand that Bernie Sanders's immigration plan be the minimum standard for any candidate that depends on the Latinx vote. Organized socialists and others that support the Sanders's campaign should learn from, support, and align with immigrant communities and their organizations in order to fight for these reforms together.
In the early twentieth century, the Socialist Party in the US helped organize and incorporate immigrant workers into party-aligned federations based on their linguistic, national, and cultural affiliations. This method recognized the need for self-determination, which then laid the basis for solidarity, active participation, and coordinated action. If socialists at that time could connect with non-English speaking immigrant communities–then so can we today.
If Bernie Sanders loses the primary, immigrant activists and organized socialists will have to push him to fight within the Democratic Party for his immigration platform to be taken up by whomever wins.
To that end, coalitions and organizing committees should be formed now. We should be calling for the abolition of ICE and the DHS, for the repeal of the “Illegal Immigration Act of 1996”, and for active opposition to US intervention in Latin America. This specifically includes ending Plan Frontera Sur, the War on Drugs, and free trade policies at the root of inequality and displacement.
To that end, coalitions and organizing committees should be formed now. We should be calling for the abolition of ICE and the DHS, for the repeal of the “Illegal Immigration Act of 1996”, and for active opposition to US intervention in Latin America. This specifically includes ending Plan Frontera Sur, the War on Drugs, and free trade policies at the root of inequality and displacement. Sanders's supporters and organized socialists need to take the lead from Latinx activists and focus on ending dehumanizing policies terrorizing immigrant communities in the here and now, while also actively resisting the root causes of migration–imperialism.
That’s what it will take for the left to truly build an intersectional and international movement against capitalist border systems and for the liberation of land and people.
Lupita Romero an undocumented Xicana of indigenous roots who resides in Queens, New York. She is a writer and self-taught mixed media artist. She works as a legal advocate for low income New Yorkers and is a proud union member with the Legal Services Staff Association.
