Thread: Who kicked the sleeping giant?

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Who kicked the sleeping giant?
Immigrants have decided they will no longer be passive punching bags


Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a statewide organization committed to the full participation of immigrants in civic life

March 14, 2006

It looks like someone went and kicked the sleeping giant.

Last Friday, Chicago's downtown was paralyzed by an immigrant march estimated at more than 100,000 people. They carried hand-lettered signs saying "My Mexican immigrant son died in Iraq," "I'm a dishwasher--not a criminal" and "Don't deport my parents."

Chicago's march is part of a growing wave of immigrant protest across the nation. Last week, 5,000 Mexicans gathered in Oregon; on March 6, 30,000 Latinos from the Washington area rallied on the U.S. Capitol steps.

The marches are tied to the U.S. Senate's debate on immigration reform. That's the last hope of immigrants eager to win reasonable and workable reforms, to reunite divided immigrant families, to create a guest-worker program for the nation's future labor needs and--most divisively--to include an eventual path to earned citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants working and paying taxes in the U.S.

The marchers also were protesting H.R. 4437, the harshly punitive bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that takes an "enforcement only" approach to immigration reform. The legislation was hurriedly rammed through the House just before Christmas. This bill would make millions of undocumented dishwashers and nannies "aggravated criminal felons" and turn priests and nurses into criminals for "aiding and abetting" the undocumented.

The Chicago march was the work of emerging Mexican immigrant leaders and lifelong Mexican-American activists. But the Illinoisan most responsible for kicking the sleeping giant, and who has the most to lose in the long term, was not present.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a decision last fall to use "illegal immigration" as the Republican Party's next emotionally charged wedge issue. The political calculation is that the resentment and latent racism felt toward our Mexican neighbors can be demagogued for political advantage this year, dividing the Democrats and keeping the House in Republican hands.

However, in what appears to be an entirely predictable example of the law of unintended consequences, the immigrant communities in general and the Mexican community in particular have declined to allow themselves to be passive punching bags.

There are few communities in the U.S. that work harder at lower pay and in worse conditions than the Mexican community. Mexicans do this with few complaints in exchange for the promise that their children might live better lives. But the community does not appreciate having its hard work denigrated by being called "criminals" or "terrorists." Signs on Friday said it all: "We are America."

The last big spasm of immigrant bashing was in California during the mid-1990s by then-Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Proposition 187. Mexican immigrants responded by first marching and then becoming American citizens and voting Democratic in record numbers.

Hastert's short-sighted strategy has gored the Republican business community that understands our nation's labor needs and energized a national Roman Catholic immigrant-justice campaign so muscular that last week Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles threatened massive civil disobedience. The anti-immigrant demagoguery also launched an unprecedented national political mobilization by the Mexican and immigrant community. Oops!

A little-noted fact about the 2004 presidential election was that socially conservative immigrant Latinos were 40 percent more likely to vote for President Bush than U.S.-born Latinos. Now Bush's and Karl Rove's carefully crafted and successful Hispanic outreach strategy is shredded lettuce.

What does this mean in Illinois? There are about 348,000 legal immigrants in Illinois currently eligible to become U.S. citizens. If a substantial percentage of these folks now take the steps to become U.S. citizens and the immigrant Latinos are cemented into the "Blue" column of voters, it changes the political balance of power in Illinois for the next generation. Any short-term political gain to be made from the "kick the illegals" strategy will likely lead to disastrous long-term pain for the Republican Party.

And, as if the point needed further emphasis for Hastert (whose district is now 25 percent Latino), fliers distributed at Friday's march announced 10 upcoming workshops to assist immigrants to become citizens. The motto of the march? "Hoy marchamos! Manana votamos!" "Today we march. Tomorrow we vote!"

What does this mean in Illinois? There are about 348,000 legal immigrants in Illinois currently eligible to become U.S. citizens.

WHAT! There is no law that says illegals are eligible to become citizens yet. (and there better not ever be!)

The sleeping giant that has been kicked is the over 100 million Americans that want illegal aliens deported!

W

The motto of the march? "Hoy marchamos! Manana votamos!" "Today we march. Tomorrow we vote!"

That we absolutely cannot allow to happen. It would be the end.