Comprehensive Immigration Reform is Anti-Immigrant & Anti-Indigenous

Posted In Infoshop News

By Franco Habre and Mari Garza

Comprehensive Immigration Reform is inherently anti-immigrant.  It is presented as a “path to citizenship” and as a temporary solution to halting the incarceration/deportation of some migrants, but it is actually an attack in disguise.  The reform package known as Senate Bill S.744 is a blatant plot to further immobilize, mold, and reduce the lives of migrants.  Comprehensive Immigration Reform, otherwise known as “CIR”, is not about restoring the dignity and human rights of migrants.  It is, however, an opportunity to reinforce white supremacy, the rule of law; racist/imperial borders; free trade and exploitable labor from the global south, and will further invisibilize the existence of Indigenous/First Nations peoples living in and around the so-called US/Mexico border, which at the time of its creation, bisected the homelands of four Indigenous tribes.

The title of Senate Bill S.744 is, “The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act”.  The title makes it easy to infer the priority of the bill–border security. The policing/surveillance of the 1,933-mile colonial boundary called the US/Mexico border has grown exponentially in the last decade.  Communities along this border have experienced the unrelenting infestation of increasingly abusive Border Patrol agents, aerial drones, in-land weaponized checkpoints during daily routines in their own neighborhoods, and increased freight traffic.  In addition, despite the increased border security, people still die in the deserts of the border region, those migrating north from Mexico and Central America to flee economic and/or political injustice.  This bill will continue to limit the freedom of movement for Indigenous peoples as the bill contains provisions for increased militarization of their homelands, and will thus continue shifting border crossers through the perilous deserts of  Lipan Apache, Kickapoo, Tohono O’odham, and Yaqui homelands.

The Workers’ Scorecard on NAFTA

The settlement of Blanca Navidad, on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo, just south of the U.S. border. Blanca Navidad was created by workers looking for land to build a place to live, and is part of a network of radical communities on the border, and throughout Mexico, sympathetic with the Zapatista movement. Most residents work in the maquiladoras. Photo by David Bacon.

From David Bacon on Mexmigration, 24 January 2014

Moderator’s Note: The maquiladoras – mostly foreign-owned assembly-line factories that operate on the U.S.-Mexico border and the interior of Mexico – have long been part of the social scientific and political discourse because these operations highlight so many of the challenging issues facing the Mexican working class and especially women workers: Workplace heath and safety issues due to the use of hazardous substances and production procedures; sexual harassment and assaults; low wages and lack of meaningful social and medical benefits; intense productivity pressures leading to high turnover rates; lack of opportunities for advancement and promotion. These are just some of the problems that maquiladora workers have faced and battled for nearly six decades now.

While the maquiladora industry seemed to lose some of its “allure” as an investment opportunity for transnational corporations with the rise of China, and there was a slight downturn in the relocation of factories during the decade from 1998 and 2008, it appears that the industry is on the rebound and may be actually poised for a major growth spurt. This time US-based corporations will not lead the expansion; instead, China is opening maquiladoras as are other Pacific Rim nations, which will lead this next “fourth” wave of border industrialization.  This should be interesting and given the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it seems plausible that the fourth wave of maquila expansion may signal a new long-term trend in which the ideology of comparative advantage is exhausted in terms of geopolitical dynamics.

Harrowing Photographs of Migrants Making the Perilous Journey Through the Arizona Desert

Originally Posted in Feature Shoot

by Julia Sabot on October 24, 2013 ·

Forty-three year old Acevedo Guadalupe-Herrera from Ahuacatitlan, Guerrero, Mexico, lays unconscious surrounded by medical officials next to a ranch off Elephant Head Road near Green Valley, Arizona, August 8, 2009. Guadalupe-Herrera was found by a ranch hand and was presumed to be dead, although he recovered with the help of IV fluids and medical attention. He had been walking for five days with little water and no food.

After the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, the US made several attempts to stymie and fortify undocumented movement in established crossings zones beginning with the introduction of Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, and Operation Hold The Line in El Paso, Texas. One intended and reported result of the operation was to funnel undocumented movement into geographically inhospitable areas of the Sonora desert in Arizona in an attempt to deter potential migrants from crossing the border.

As a result of the longer and hotter path through the desert in Arizona, border deaths in this region have increased dramatically. A study by the Bi-national Migration Institute states that from 1990 to 2012, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner examined the remains of 2,238 migrants. Of these deaths, over 750 cases remain unidentified. While apprehension numbers have fallen in recent years, deaths throughout the region have not seen a similar reduction. According to the conservative death estimates of the Border Patrol statistics there were 177 deaths in the Tucson region in 2011 alone.—Matt Nager

Having traveled a fair amount through Latin America, Denver-based photographer Matt Nager had a great interest in shooting a story on the border. In 2008, he came across an article about advances in DNA testing to help identify bodies found in the desert of Arizona. That sparked his interest, and he spent the next year researching the issue and the striking numbers of migrant deaths occurring in Southern Arizona.

During the summer of 2009, Nager spent two months working in Tucson and around Southern Arizona. He spent time with Border Patrol and activist groups who help people who are struggling in the desert. Nager spent a week at the sheriff’s office, which is the first official organization called when a body is found. He photographed inside the medical examiners office during an exam of an unidentified body. Additionally, he spent time with and photographed in the mortuary in Tucson where they cremate bodies that have been unsuccessfully identified.

In the years since this project, it appears as if the issue has largely gone unchanged. Statistics show that deaths continue to occur at rates nearing 200 bodies per year. As technology advances, it will undoubtedly become easier to identify bodies. There is now a website, Humane Borders, that documents where each body was found as well as the gender and name of that individual.

The US-Mexico border fence is highlighted by Border Patrol headlights under a bright moon in Sasabe, Arizona., Friday, June 5, 2009. Building the wall along the border has resulted in migrants following more secluded and dangerous routes where the wall has not been built.