Immigrants have repeatedly been the scapegoats for capitalism’s economic and social problems. Land owners, industrialists, politicians and vigilantes have always blamed immigrants and subjected them to violence and terror at the same time that their labor was being exploited for profit. Unfortunately the U.S. labor movement was sometimes caught up in anti-immigrant hysteria, blaming the foreign-born for taking “American jobs.�
In recent years however, a new movement has taken hold in the labor movement. Fueled by the increase in union organization among immigrant workers, the labor movement is now championing the struggle for immigrant amnesty. Perhaps more than ever, immigrant rights have become the common demand of a broad section of the labor, civil rights and people’s movements. Ironically, in the post-September 11 era, when President George W. Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft and the rightwing-controlled Congress are increasing attacks on immigrant rights, the movement to defend those rights is growing stronger.
This issue of Dynamic focuses on this new immigrant rights movement. We feature articles on the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, the FREEDOM act legislation to establish amnesty, the recent increase of deaths on the U.S./Mexico border, to name a few. We recognize that immigrant rights are human rights, and that the attack on immigrants is part of a bigger attack on all of our liberties.
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