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TechnoratiU.S. Shares Blame For Immigration Woes
IT IS AN EXTRAORDINARY thing to leave behind one's loved ones and trek thousands of miles to a place where one will be greeted with disdain and derision. When most people hear the word "alien," they think of extra-terrestrial beings; by applying this word to immigrants, we convey the sense that these people come from another world.
In fact, many come from countries that have been very closely tied to the United States, economically and militarily. Look at the base of Washington, D.C.'s Iwo Jima Marine memorial and you will find a list of the Marines' engagements throughout the world. You might be surprised to learn that the Marines were in Nicaragua in 1912-1913 and 1927-1933, and in the Dominican Republic a half dozen times, including in 1916-1924 and in 1965.
The same corporate and political elites that took us to war in Iraq have intervened incessantly in Latin America to protect their interests, and in the process they've exacerbated the misery of poor Latin Americans, leaving them little choice but to emigrate.
As many of the detainees captured in New Bedford last month are indigenous women from Guatemala, we will use that country to demonstrate the connection between our government's foreign policy and Latin American immigration. Guatemala enjoyed democratically elected governments from 1944 until 1954, when a coup overthrew the regime of Jacobo Arbenz, who was trying to address great socio-economic inequalities while staying free of Soviet influence.
When his efforts to give land to peasants ran afoul of such major U.S. corporations as the United Fruit Co., the CIA organized an invasion under a U.S.-trained Guatemalan military official, Carlos Castillo Armas. The CIA's own records confirm its role as the primary organizer of the invasion. A propaganda campaign convinced Guatemalans that Castillo had invincible forces, and he waltzed into Guatemala City and restored military rule, which would last until 1986. Castillo outlawed political parties and created death squads to deal with those sympathetic to the old democratic government.
Having eliminated Guatemala's young democracy, the United States generally supported the increasingly brutal military governments that succeeded Castillo Armas's, and trained them in counter-insurgency techniques. The repression against indigenous people in the countryside reached genocidal proportions by the 1980s, under the regime of Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, whom President Reagan called "a man of great integrity . . . totally dedicated to democracy."
Reagan's administration ignored and misconstrued its own intelligence reports of atrocities as it gave military aid to Rios Montt. During this period, it is estimated, more than 100,000 civilians were killed by government violence, mostly indigenous Mayans in the countryside. Whole villages were massacred. Up to a million Mayans were forced out of their homes, and into internment camps or forced to labor for wealthy land barons.
The social fabric was ripped asunder, exacerbating Guatemala's inequality and the extreme poverty of most rural Guatemalans, and hundreds of thousands found themselves with no option but to leave the country. Rios Montt was largely considered the most powerful operative in the country's ruling party until 2003, well after the end of his presidency.
If we want to understand what has driven well over a million Guatemalans to immigrate to the United States, with and without papers, we need look no further than the violent regimes our government has created and sponsored. There are similar stories in most major Latin American source countries for immigration to the United States and Rhode Island.
As in Guatemala, in El Salvador, U.S.-trained government death squads and paramilitary forces killed thousands, including Archbishop Oscar Romero, and devastated rural communities, forcing emigration.
In the Dominican Republic, the United States intervened militarily several times over the 20th Century, the last time to prevent the return to power of the democratically elected Juan Bosch.
In Colombia, the United States has supported bloody regimes with close ties to the paramilitary groups that kill more than 200 union leaders a year — the current government's director of intelligence has been indicted for giving hit lists of union leaders to paramilitary groups.
The U.S.-based Chiquita banana company just confessed to paying one of these paramilitary groups millions of dollars, supposedly to "protect" its Colombian workers. There are U.S. military forces in Colombia, protecting an oil pipeline.
In Mexico, the North American Free Trade Agreement has benefited corporate elites on both sides of the border, devastated U.S. manufacturing workers, and made it impossible for small farmers in Mexico to compete with U.S. agribusiness, leaving them little choice but to emigrate.
To have an honest debate about immigration, we must recognize that many of the people who come here from Latin America are driven by horrific events in which our government had a hand. Immigrants want the same things most Americans do: decent jobs, basic rights, and a life free of violence and coercion.
Unfortunately, our government has helped make that impossible in their homelands, so they come here. To put it plainly: Many undocumented immigrants' violation of U.S. immigration law is a direct consequence of our government's unrelenting violations of international law.
As we look at ways to reform our immigration system — and, abhorrently, suggest throwing immigrants' children off RIteCare and out of our schools — we must acknowledge that changes in our own government's behavior would improve the terrible conditions that compel so many people to emigrate in the first place
David Segal is a Rhode Island state representative from Providence. Miguel Luna ia a Providence city councilman.
© 2007 The Providence Journal
8 Comments so far
Show AllNo question about the history lesson, but as far as I am concerned (legal immigrant) the issue continues to be the same, legal versus ilegal immigration. The difference should be made clear when discussing immigration issues. I am tired of reading about the problems of immigrants etc. if they are not legal then they should have problems and should be sent back to their country of origin period! the law should be either enforced or changed, to have millons of undocumented people in the country is ridiculous! Mexico would not allow it nor any other country in the world. Thanks, HRB
Hi Gail. No I am sorry, but from what I have seen and heard from Lou, I have to disagree with you. His constant blaming the victim with regard to "illegal aliens" and his attributing to them every problem that exists in this country, from low wages to crime, to overcrowded schools, to disease, to the upsurge in ingrown toenails smacks of the worst kind of scapegoating. Even the term "illegal alien" riles me. Considering all the suffering and impoverishment this country has helped to visit upon Mexico, Central and Latin America, we should just let them all in and give them everything they want, as far as I am concerned. Sorry, that's how I see it. We are enjoying a comfortable standard of living partly as a result of the exploitation and impoverishment of these countries. Moreover, the damage done during our proxy wars in that region during the Cold War and now the current "War on Drugs" is somehting that must be acknowledged and atoned for at some point.
You are right. Lou does point the ultimate blame at corporations and he does point out how they have essentially corrupted our political system. but what he cannot do is connect the dots and see that the larger systemic problem is capitalism itself. In fact, while on the one hand he seems to understand that corporations and NAFTA have helped to impoverish Latin America, he nonetheless demonizes Hugo Chavez for actually trying to buck US hegemony in Latin America and even wonders why we can't exercise "our" control over the Hemisphere. As if we have a "right" to dominate and control that region.
Instead of constantly harping on and blaming victims of US policies, Lou needs to focus on the corporations themselves, on racism and poverty in the US and our own social structure of growing inequity, on the power of lobbies and the Republican "K street project," on how late stage capitalism must inevitably implode as endless growth is finally showing itself as the delusion it is. these are just a few things I would like Lou to include in his "populism."
jp March 31st, 2007 6:31 pm
"I wish every Amreican could read this article. Everytime I hear the thinly disguised hate mongering from people like Lou Dobbs,.........."
jp: I think you're being a little unfair. The United States has a major illegal immigration problem on its hands and the majority of immigrants are coming from Mexico. It was Lou Dobbs who exposed the failures of NAFTA's promises to both Mexicans and Americans.
If you can get beyond his focus on the the number of illegal Mexicans crossing the border, you will discover that Dobbs doesn't blame them for doing whatever they have to do to support their families. What he does do is expose the alliance between the U.S. government and the corporations who designed these trade agreements to benefit the ruling elite, and not the citizens of "any" country.
The only people in Mexico and in the U.S. that are benefiting from NAFTA are the wealthy and super-wealthy. As a result of NAFTA, WTO, and other bogus trade groups and agreements, jobs in Mexico are becoming non-existent as they are in the United States. The jobs are either being shipped-off to China or India where labor costs are cheaper and environmental standards are lacking.
Make no mistake, the global elites want to sieze control of everyone and everything. The middle class in this country is evaporating as a result of our WTO membership and trade agreements that favor the super-wealthy, under a corporate controlled government.
"Commerce Department data released today (March, 2007) show that the share of national income going to wages and salaries in 2006 was at its lowest level on record, with data going back to 1929. The share of national income captured by corporate profits, in contrast, was at its highest level on record."
Lou Dobbs is not promoting hate-mongering, he's trying to educate the public as to "why" this immigration problem exists!
If you listen to him more closely, you will realize that he also focuses on the "outsourcing of jobs", not only from the United States, but from Mexico as well.
Without Lou Dobbs, the majority in this country would still be in the dark, totally unaware of what's happening within the halls of Congress.
Aside from an end to the policies of imperialism, we need international standards for wages and working conditions. An international livable wage (at US and Eoropean levels) and the prohibiting of products not made according to those standards in the legal market.
The next time INS raids some meat packing, farm labor, or sweat shop operation employing illegals, the F.B. I. need to similarly arrive with warrents for the arrest of those executives in charge of these operations (including especially the board of directors) for being accessories to criminal acrivity. I'll bet we could stop this "immigrant" problem cold in its tracks by doing so.
Then the repeal of NAFTA along with WTO and closing of AID, IMF, and the World Bank might also give these peoples a chance to recover their own countries from the elites who have made thier lives so miserable.
It is impossible to learn of our country's destruction of so much of Central America, Mexico, and South America. To my knowledge, only some movies have taken on this dark side of US history. Noam Chomsky has written for years about how major multinational corporations have used the American military to protect their interests. And while many of these countries could be feeding themselves, they are growing flowers and other acricultural products which have absolutely no benefit to the local people. It's no small wonder that so many farmers turn to growing drugs to earn a living.
We are not the benevolent nation we are led to believe as we learn American History. We invade another country on the average of every three years.
Today we are learning that our present government is absolutely corrupt. But it isn't the first corrupt government we've had. However, they are certainly the worst and most dangerous. They are also quite open about their disdain for the will of the people. This is the time to begin facing the evils done in our name. Impeachment of the president and vice president would send a message that we want a better country that lives up to the high ideals laid out in our constitution.
Now is the time to begin and get this nation back where it was originally meant to be: a beacon for the oppressed of the world.
I wish every Amreican could read this article. Everytime I hear the thinly disguised hate mongering from people like Lou Dobbs, I just want to force him and his fans to read what this country has done to Mexico and Central and Latin American countries, how US firms have been instrumental in exploiting and perpetuated horrendous inequality and the disempowerment to the point of genocide of indigenous peoples there. Sadly, they come here to make a better life for themselves and are subject to exploitative labor practices and racist hatred from people who are themselves exploited and disempowered by those same corporations.
American corporations have raped the South American continent and many others with our "free" trade agreements, WTO, IMF, and the World Bank (ever wondered why the war monger Wolfowitz wanted to be the president of the bank?). And the American government is complicite in the rapes, all in the name of greed. Now that the blowback from these evil compacts has come home to roast in the way of lost jobs, Americans are being whipped up into a frenzy of bigoted hate. Just what the corporations wanted. Set the American workers fury, who have lost their jobs and are watching their standard of living go down the toilet, on the foreigners that have been subjected to the same fate first. The Americans who believe in blaming the immigrants for their current situation are just raping their southern neighbors AGAIN! Wake up people!!!! Look to your government for the reasons as to why you are in this mess. Don't blame the victims just because they happen to come from another country. Point your rage at the real target!!