Migration and Borders

January 26, 2020

Abuelo’s truck

“Babe, what time are your parents coming?” Julian says to me while leaning over my shoulder from the side of the bed, his dark wavy hair falling over his big brown eyes.

He’s been up for two and a half hours already, fed our two cats and a dog, made us coffee, and a to do list for the day. He lays down next to me and waits for me to wake up.

“Too early.” I say half asleep, scrunching my face to the light. “I need to text my dad.”

They are coming at 10am, as in, five minutes away. I brush my teeth and we head down, get in the car and say our hellos.

“Hola Juan. Hola Yka” says Julian as he gets in the car.

January 23, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

Abriendo la frontera a través de la lucha de clases y solidaridad

El capitalismo norteamericano se ha transformado en dos realidades superpuestas, y aun así totalmente contradictorias para el capital y el trabajo. En ninguna parte es esto más evidente que observando lo que ha sucedido entre los Estados Unidos y México en las últimas tres décadas. A través de los auspicios del estado, sus dos principales partidos políticos y sus homólogos menores a través de las fronteras nacionales, la clase capitalista de los Estados Unidos ha transformado la región en una economía singular para el capital sin fronteras.[1]

January 13, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

Opening the border through class struggle and solidarity

North American capitalism has been transformed into two over-lapping, yet starkly contradictory realities for capital and labor. Nowhere is this more apparent than through observation of what has taken place between the United States and Mexico over the last three decades. Through the aegis of the state, its two major political parties, and its junior counterparts across national boundaries, the US capitalist class has transformed the region into a singular borderless economy for capital.

Integration in this form has been accomplished through what are mischaracterized as “free-trade agreements” (FTAs). These were imposed under authoritarian conditions. Freedom was conspicuously absent when FTAs were dictated to the Mexican people during economic crisis as conditional in exchange for emergency loans. These “structural adjustment programs” required by outside entities such as the International Monetary

December 20, 2019

by Lupita Romero

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 Republican’s nauseatingly racist attacks on our civil rights and the shallow support of establishment Democrats, the voice of undocumented immigrants is ignored in elections if it does not fall in line behind the Democratic Party, or if we go beyond merely focusing our efforts to register our documented community to vote “blue”.

Despite being taxpayers, we are not allowed to vote, run for office or donate to, fund-raise, or directly campaign for candidates in most local elections and in no state or federal elections. For this reason, civil society and immigrant rights organizations are constrained to waging limited legal challenges and legislative reforms that rely on building alliance with Democrats at the cost of independent action and accountability to the larger community. This marginalization in the electoral arena

December 17, 2019

by Blas Reies

The Gilroy and El Paso massacres: Trump and the long history of anti-Mexican racism in the United States

It’s sad to say that I was shocked and angered but not surprised when I heard of the July 28, 2019 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which was carried out by a white supremacist. I felt more shock, anger, and apprehension a few days later when I heard of yet another mass shooting carried out by another white supremacist, this time in El Paso, Tejas. Again, I wasn’t surprised that something like this could happen in the U.S. today.

Trump started his campaign for president about three years ago by calling Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals.” He has called us “enemies” of the U.S. and promised to build a wall to keep us out of this country. Once in office, he has called Central Americans “animals,” and their nations “shithole countries.” Political pundits like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have followed suit by claiming that immigration from poor countries makes the U.S. “dirty” and are “destroying America.” They have called Mexico a “hostile foreign power,’ implying that Mexicans in the U.S. are subversive agents. They have said that immigration is a threat to the U.S., which will lead to a less safe country and that it will result in the death of “America.”

October 20, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

The Anti-Migrant International

In early December of 2017 the Trump Administration officially withdrew the United States from the UN Global Pact on Migration, claiming the 2016 accord “undermine[s] the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.” The aligned governments of Israel, Hungary, Poland, Australia, Austria, and several other countries followed suit in withdrawing their support, or by publicly repudiating the agreement. Rightwing parties in Germany, France, Italy and Denmark also vocalized their opposition, pledging to withdraw once in power.