Democracy Now: Immigration Reform, Big Business, NAFTA and the Impact on the African American Workforce

Immigration Reform, Big Business, NAFTA and the Impact on the African American Workforce
Host: Amy Goodman
Democracy Now

Protests are continuing across the country against proposed changes to the nation's immigration laws. In New York, tens of thousands of people marched from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan on Saturday in support of immigrant rights. The rally came a week after upwards of million people demonstrated in Los Angeles, and after weeks of historic protests in cities from Chicago to Denver to Phoenix.
On Capitol Hill, the debate over immigration reform is continuing in Congress. On Sunday, Senate majority leader Bill Frist said he wants a full Senate vote on immigration legislation later this week despite sharp divisions over the issue between Democrats and Republicans as well as within his own party.

The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved a bill that would allow the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country a chance to work here legally and eventually become U.S. citizens. President Bush supports a guest worker plan that would not allow undocumented workers to obtain citizenship but would let them stay in the country as legal residents. Meanwhile the House has already approved legislation written by Republican James Sensenbrenner that has been described as the most repressive immigration bill in 70 years. House bill 4437 would, among other things, make every undocumented immigrant a felon and make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer help to undocumented immigrants.

The issue of immigration dominated the Sunday talk shows this weekend. Sensenbrenner called the legislation "the toughest thing that I've done in 37 years in elective public office." Senator George Allen of Virginia broke ranks with President Bush saying, "I don't think we ought to be passing anything that rewards illegal behavior or amnesty." And South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham cast the debate as "a defining moment for the Republican Party."

For more on the issue of immigration we speak with two guests:


Ron Walters, professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His most recent book is titled "Freedom is Not Enough."
David Bacon, a veteran labor journalist who writes for a number of publications, including The Nation, The Progressive and the Pacific News Service. He is also a programmer on Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley. Bacon is author of the books "The Children of NAFTA" and "Communities Without Borders" which is being published later this year.

Excerpt from the transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: For more on issue of immigration, we are joined now by Ron Walters, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. His most recent book is titled Freedom Is Not Enough. He joins us from Washington, D.C. And on the line from California, David Bacon, veteran labor journalist who writes for a number of publications, including The Nation, The Progressive, the Pacific News Service. He is also a programmer at Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley. David Bacon is author of the book The Children of NAFTA and Communities Without Borders, which is being published later this year. David, let's begin with you. How do you frame this discussion, and your response to what's happening now on Capitol Hill?

DAVID BACON: Well, first, the most important thing, I think, are these outpourings of divisions that are taking place around the country with a million people on the streets in Los Angeles, the demonstrations that just happened in New York. They are happening in places where we don't even think of, the states that don't have large immigrant communities. Charlotte, North Carolina, for instance, or there was even a demonstration confronting Frist in Tennessee, itself. So, this has become something that's taking place, you know, nationally around the country.

In the Congress, though, I don't think that the debate in Congress is really reflecting what's happening out in the streets, because it is posing two alternatives, neither one of which, I think, offer a reasonable improvement in the lives of undocumented people here or any kind of solution to our immigration problems, if, in fact, you see immigration as a problem, which, I think, is the basic issue underlining the whole debate. Sensenbrenner, as you said, proposes a bill that is probably the most regressive immigration bill in the history of our country, you know, that would turn 12 million people into federal felons.

But the Senate bill is really not that much of an improvement either, because what the Senate proposes to do essentially is to establish huge new guest workers programs that we have experienced -- it’s ironic that this is happening around the birthday of Cesar Chavez, because Cesar Chavez was a big opponent of one of the first big guest worker programs in the U.S., the Bracero program. And Cesar said that organizing the United Farm Workers union would not have been possible, so long as that program continued to exist, one of the main reasons he had for opposing it and for ending it.

So, here's the Senate now proposing to establish a program that would be much larger, and not just for agricultural workers, but for workers in many different industries, and say -- and the Senate says that the only way in which somebody who is here without papers can get any kind of legal status is to enroll as somebody in one of these programs. And at the same time, the Senate bill also increases enforcement, as well, by increasing the enforcement of employer sanctions, for instance, which is the law that says that undocumented people are committing a federal crime by working. We’ve had that on the books since 1986. And instead of eliminating that law, the Senate bill proposes to enforce it on steroids, more or less.

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