Read Disclaimer Clause at the Bottom First and Last
Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary (2005) is an interesting look, from the ground-up, of who the so-called undocumented or illegal immigrants are, what they go through to come to the United States and find the American dream, and the hurdles, the challenges, near-death experiences and death itself that most encounter!
There are many experiences, many realities and many perspectives to the experiences and realities of illegal immigrants: the economic conditions that propel them from their countries, their choice of migration or lack of one, their challenges across the border or through several borders, their labor struggles, their economic pressures and their connection to the movement of labor, not just capital, around the globe. But there is only one truth to all their experiences! The truth that illegal and undocumented immigrants, like many legal immigrants, minorities and people of color, are exploited, abused, overworked, overqualified for jobs they do, and are usually at the bottom of the American or North American socio-economic-political ladder.
Many immigrants - legal or illegal, educated or uneducated, poor or middle class - are second class citizens in their countries of origin and are third or fourth class citizens in the United States. They are, like poor people (everywhere), people of color (here and elsewhere) and women (all over the world), marginalized or oppressed on both sides of the fence...sometimes on all sides of the fence.
Arizona maybe the first major fault line where the battle between those who are against illegality, for variety of reasons, is being fought against those who want more protection and rights for illegals, and want to make sure that citizens and legal residents are not harassed or targeted due to mistaken identity (because of their appearance or politics). But it is not the last! The Arizona fault line is not confined to border States - it is moving North! Unfortunately our media has not covered this migration of issue well.
The contradiction in many Conservative arguments, including among many Tea Party activists, is that while they worry government (big or small), liberalism or real libertarianism, could take away, or restrict, freedom and civil liberties that give ordinary people the option to move, migrate, work and live anywhere without constant supervision, surveillance and strict impositions, they want to restrict the movement of labor and the rights of minorities without recognizing their basic civil liberties.
How does one get away with such a hypocrisy?
Here are some popular myths that circulate around "illegal and undocumented" workers, and skews some of the facts about "labor migration, labor movement, labor exploitation, labor contribution, labor security and labor success!"
Myth 1: Lot of people cross the border with determination, courage, fear and take unbelievable risks to find the American dream...because America is fair, kind and generous!
Large segments of the immigrant population, legal and illegal, like many American minorities, are overworked, underpaid, under protected and easily dispensed with. They have given a great deal to taxes, social security, government wealth, business profits and rarely articulate their legitimate needs and rights (out of shyness, fear, isolation, prejudice and racism). Most of them will never see their social security, their retirement benefits or any benefit that they have contributed to. Even legal minority faculty struggle in schools and universities without protection or proper pay for years.
While some illegal immigrants use State funds, benefits and emergency services, and get into crime (for survival or for quick money), most struggle to get into the US, struggle after getting into the US and struggle for many years just to earn a few dollars. American dream is a relative term: depending on where you come from, where you've been, what your standards are, what you are willing to accept and tolerate, what you are willing to put up with or endure, and how much of your mind is indoctrinated by Conservative propaganda about "hard honest work being appropriately rewarded, or helping you become rich, successful, well liked, well integrated and happy" in the United States.
The search for American dream is sometimes driven by ignorance, naivete, hope, faith, desperation, illusion and indoctrination.
Myth 2: Immigrants, legal and illegal, change the great culture of America, take away choices from American natives (a term that is so vague and odd, considering most Americans have immigrant ancestry - many of whom probably came illegally into this country).
Lot of immigrants do not consider the "popular American culture" attractive or really a culture...neither do many conservatives who constantly preach about less drugs, drinks and pornographic dances in our children's lives. In fact many immigrants and their children do better psychologically, socially and academically because of their culture, and by avoiding American popular culture. Not the other way around!
Also, how are poor and desperate illegal immigrants, employed by American businesses that are interested in profits and wealth accumulation, responsible for taking jobs that are thrown their way so they can buy bread and milk for their children? Why are Conservatives and Tea Party members taking out their anger, annoyance and frustration on the poorest of the poor, the powerless of the powerless, when they should be challenging fat cats in their own communities and society who are deceiving or exploiting them?
Even legal immigrants, not all of them George Soros or Arianne Huffington (who have billions and millions of dollars respectively), are overqualified, overworked, underpaid, under-served, and unprotected much of the time. For every legal immigrant who finds the American dream (as defined by Conservatives), there are thousands who have a hard time keeping a roof over their heads and raising a decent family. For every illegal immigrant who finds a decent working class life in the US a lot sink, drown and die in the US - many while trying to get into the US.
Myth 3: Illegal immigrants are good for the American economy: they help businesses and economic investments, while also helping themselves.
Illegal immigrants, like legal immigrants, minorities and poor workers, help the good ole rich boys stay rich, powerful and access more wealth, while they struggle for basic justice. Many of them also protect the privileged class, or people who feel entitled to rights without responsibilities, from difficult, dangerous and demeaning jobs. Illegal immigrants are good for the capitalists with money, power and ideology.They are never good for themselves, their families, their rights, their future or the general economy back in their home countries (no matter how many big vacant houses they build infrequently with their few migrant dollars).
Myth 4: Illegal immigrants are good for their home countries from where they migrated from because they remit huge amounts of money that help that economy.
Many illegal immigrants do not earn enough to even feed themselves in the United States let alone save for the future - and fewer remit money back to their home countries. Many of them are legally stuck in the US, economically trapped in their communities (even with low paying jobs) and are constantly exploited. Whenever there are economic challenges in the US they suffer the most: they are the last to be hired, first to be fired, frequently vilified and most to be exploited and abused. This is true for many legal immigrants too - including as faculties who provide cheap intellectual labor.
As long as the poor escape, or are encouraged to do so by their families, communities and countries' governments and businesses, no effort will be made by these governments and businesses to improve justice, resources for the poor and the middle class, and create a more egalitarian society - that does not have their elites working with capitalists elsewhere for their own narrow economic interests. Countries, from where many illegal immigrants migrate from, have either been colonies that have been exploited by foreign powers and businesses for centuries, or they have had an elite ruling class that does not care for its poor, women or its disenfranchised and marginalized.
Myth 5: The southern border, where American troops, the military and the para-military operate intensely (though vigilante groups claim it is not enough), stops at the official differentiation between American and Mexican territories.
American troops and money (including taxpayers' money) extend way into Mexico, and influence the borders between Mexico and Guatemala, and beyond. Illegal immigrants, who cross the border by foot or land, do not just come from Mexico, but from many other Latin and South American countries south of Mexico. Lot of the Mexican border patrol, narcotics control agencies, domestic policing, immigration services and national (military) security, even at the Guatemalan border, are funded by the US. Thus the unofficial American border extends way into Mexico, and beyond.
The logic behind this is that if America can finance services and efforts to curb Latin American migration into Mexico then the US will not have to deal with illegal immigration from or through Mexico. They can also, through this infiltration and expansion, control or eliminate Mexican and Latin American drug cartels and coyotes that operate in Mexico and the US.
Well known journalists like Fareed Zakaria, and social scientists like Jeffry Miron and Andres Martinez, that the American public are familiar with, have indicated that "this war on drug, and obsession with illegal immigrants" have created a very unique Mexican dependency on the US government, its foreign policy and selective business activities. They fear that the Mexican government is constantly being told what to do with their people and how to man their borders on both sides.
The critics continue, "There are entire departments, institutions and systems within Mexico, and the American gun industries and lobby groups, that rely on the American war-on-drugs money to sustain themselves and keep themselves employed. Some even make big profits from these programs. So how will these war-on-drug policies ever solve the real problems? Or the underlying ones?"
Myth 6: We don't have enough research to help us decide on the best solution, as we don't have accurate or detailed information for the best policy on this matter.
There has been thirty years of research on illegal and undocumented labor in the United States, and enough facts and details are available for a constructive policy that will prevent poor people from fleeing their countries due to lack of protection, choice and justice in their home countries. We know their domestic economies neglect them, and make it easy for elites inside and outside their communities to exploit them. Their decisions to leave their communities and countries are made from a desperate impulse to survive, as they get trapped into a second, third or fourth class citizenship, or become person non-grata, in the United States.
How far will a system go to make sure that non-aliens, labeled real Americans, are the only ones who remain, breed and prosper - no matter how poorly they read, think and act? How far should we go to deport - even those early immigrants who came to the US illegally, or when immigration laws and its enforcements were lax? Are we willing to evaluate the legality of the ancestors who might have given birth to men like Jared Lee Loughner, a mentally unstable man who shot and killed 13 Americans - including a 9 year old child and a reputed State judge?
Men of cloth, like Reverend Huckabee who ran for the Presidency and plans to run again, very disturbingly attack anti-imperialist views of people whose countries painfully struggled against colonialism - including his country "The United States of America". What is Huckabee assuming? That colonialism, even for America, is good?
How can the Tea Party, that Huckabee belongs to, consider itself a great protector and defender of freedom and rights when it forgets America's great revolutionary past -against colonial tyranny and slavery?
Will American Libertarians and Conservatives get strong enough to start deporting people among them, their families and communities, who came illegally (decades or generations ago), or with inadequate documentation, no matter how old, how fair skinned and how Conservative? If they want to have a social litmus test for who is "a real reliable American"...how far are they willing to go into their own past? Would they be willing to deport the great great grand children of illegal immigrants from Europe - especially when their progenies have committed financial crimes or assassinations like Jared Lee Loughner?
Tell me Conservatives and Tea Party activists...how far do you want to take this?
Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary (2005) is an interesting look, from the ground-up, of who the so-called undocumented or illegal immigrants are, what they go through to come to the United States and find the American dream, and the hurdles, the challenges, near-death experiences and death itself that most encounter!
There are many experiences, many realities and many perspectives to the experiences and realities of illegal immigrants: the economic conditions that propel them from their countries, their choice of migration or lack of one, their challenges across the border or through several borders, their labor struggles, their economic pressures and their connection to the movement of labor, not just capital, around the globe. But there is only one truth to all their experiences! The truth that illegal and undocumented immigrants, like many legal immigrants, minorities and people of color, are exploited, abused, overworked, overqualified for jobs they do, and are usually at the bottom of the American or North American socio-economic-political ladder.
Many immigrants - legal or illegal, educated or uneducated, poor or middle class - are second class citizens in their countries of origin and are third or fourth class citizens in the United States. They are, like poor people (everywhere), people of color (here and elsewhere) and women (all over the world), marginalized or oppressed on both sides of the fence...sometimes on all sides of the fence.
Arizona maybe the first major fault line where the battle between those who are against illegality, for variety of reasons, is being fought against those who want more protection and rights for illegals, and want to make sure that citizens and legal residents are not harassed or targeted due to mistaken identity (because of their appearance or politics). But it is not the last! The Arizona fault line is not confined to border States - it is moving North! Unfortunately our media has not covered this migration of issue well.
The contradiction in many Conservative arguments, including among many Tea Party activists, is that while they worry government (big or small), liberalism or real libertarianism, could take away, or restrict, freedom and civil liberties that give ordinary people the option to move, migrate, work and live anywhere without constant supervision, surveillance and strict impositions, they want to restrict the movement of labor and the rights of minorities without recognizing their basic civil liberties.
How does one get away with such a hypocrisy?
Here are some popular myths that circulate around "illegal and undocumented" workers, and skews some of the facts about "labor migration, labor movement, labor exploitation, labor contribution, labor security and labor success!"
Myth 1: Lot of people cross the border with determination, courage, fear and take unbelievable risks to find the American dream...because America is fair, kind and generous!
Large segments of the immigrant population, legal and illegal, like many American minorities, are overworked, underpaid, under protected and easily dispensed with. They have given a great deal to taxes, social security, government wealth, business profits and rarely articulate their legitimate needs and rights (out of shyness, fear, isolation, prejudice and racism). Most of them will never see their social security, their retirement benefits or any benefit that they have contributed to. Even legal minority faculty struggle in schools and universities without protection or proper pay for years.
While some illegal immigrants use State funds, benefits and emergency services, and get into crime (for survival or for quick money), most struggle to get into the US, struggle after getting into the US and struggle for many years just to earn a few dollars. American dream is a relative term: depending on where you come from, where you've been, what your standards are, what you are willing to accept and tolerate, what you are willing to put up with or endure, and how much of your mind is indoctrinated by Conservative propaganda about "hard honest work being appropriately rewarded, or helping you become rich, successful, well liked, well integrated and happy" in the United States.
The search for American dream is sometimes driven by ignorance, naivete, hope, faith, desperation, illusion and indoctrination.
Myth 2: Immigrants, legal and illegal, change the great culture of America, take away choices from American natives (a term that is so vague and odd, considering most Americans have immigrant ancestry - many of whom probably came illegally into this country).
Lot of immigrants do not consider the "popular American culture" attractive or really a culture...neither do many conservatives who constantly preach about less drugs, drinks and pornographic dances in our children's lives. In fact many immigrants and their children do better psychologically, socially and academically because of their culture, and by avoiding American popular culture. Not the other way around!
Also, how are poor and desperate illegal immigrants, employed by American businesses that are interested in profits and wealth accumulation, responsible for taking jobs that are thrown their way so they can buy bread and milk for their children? Why are Conservatives and Tea Party members taking out their anger, annoyance and frustration on the poorest of the poor, the powerless of the powerless, when they should be challenging fat cats in their own communities and society who are deceiving or exploiting them?
Even legal immigrants, not all of them George Soros or Arianne Huffington (who have billions and millions of dollars respectively), are overqualified, overworked, underpaid, under-served, and unprotected much of the time. For every legal immigrant who finds the American dream (as defined by Conservatives), there are thousands who have a hard time keeping a roof over their heads and raising a decent family. For every illegal immigrant who finds a decent working class life in the US a lot sink, drown and die in the US - many while trying to get into the US.
Myth 3: Illegal immigrants are good for the American economy: they help businesses and economic investments, while also helping themselves.
Illegal immigrants, like legal immigrants, minorities and poor workers, help the good ole rich boys stay rich, powerful and access more wealth, while they struggle for basic justice. Many of them also protect the privileged class, or people who feel entitled to rights without responsibilities, from difficult, dangerous and demeaning jobs. Illegal immigrants are good for the capitalists with money, power and ideology.They are never good for themselves, their families, their rights, their future or the general economy back in their home countries (no matter how many big vacant houses they build infrequently with their few migrant dollars).
Myth 4: Illegal immigrants are good for their home countries from where they migrated from because they remit huge amounts of money that help that economy.
Many illegal immigrants do not earn enough to even feed themselves in the United States let alone save for the future - and fewer remit money back to their home countries. Many of them are legally stuck in the US, economically trapped in their communities (even with low paying jobs) and are constantly exploited. Whenever there are economic challenges in the US they suffer the most: they are the last to be hired, first to be fired, frequently vilified and most to be exploited and abused. This is true for many legal immigrants too - including as faculties who provide cheap intellectual labor.
As long as the poor escape, or are encouraged to do so by their families, communities and countries' governments and businesses, no effort will be made by these governments and businesses to improve justice, resources for the poor and the middle class, and create a more egalitarian society - that does not have their elites working with capitalists elsewhere for their own narrow economic interests. Countries, from where many illegal immigrants migrate from, have either been colonies that have been exploited by foreign powers and businesses for centuries, or they have had an elite ruling class that does not care for its poor, women or its disenfranchised and marginalized.
Myth 5: The southern border, where American troops, the military and the para-military operate intensely (though vigilante groups claim it is not enough), stops at the official differentiation between American and Mexican territories.
American troops and money (including taxpayers' money) extend way into Mexico, and influence the borders between Mexico and Guatemala, and beyond. Illegal immigrants, who cross the border by foot or land, do not just come from Mexico, but from many other Latin and South American countries south of Mexico. Lot of the Mexican border patrol, narcotics control agencies, domestic policing, immigration services and national (military) security, even at the Guatemalan border, are funded by the US. Thus the unofficial American border extends way into Mexico, and beyond.
The logic behind this is that if America can finance services and efforts to curb Latin American migration into Mexico then the US will not have to deal with illegal immigration from or through Mexico. They can also, through this infiltration and expansion, control or eliminate Mexican and Latin American drug cartels and coyotes that operate in Mexico and the US.
Well known journalists like Fareed Zakaria, and social scientists like Jeffry Miron and Andres Martinez, that the American public are familiar with, have indicated that "this war on drug, and obsession with illegal immigrants" have created a very unique Mexican dependency on the US government, its foreign policy and selective business activities. They fear that the Mexican government is constantly being told what to do with their people and how to man their borders on both sides.
The critics continue, "There are entire departments, institutions and systems within Mexico, and the American gun industries and lobby groups, that rely on the American war-on-drugs money to sustain themselves and keep themselves employed. Some even make big profits from these programs. So how will these war-on-drug policies ever solve the real problems? Or the underlying ones?"
Myth 6: We don't have enough research to help us decide on the best solution, as we don't have accurate or detailed information for the best policy on this matter.
There has been thirty years of research on illegal and undocumented labor in the United States, and enough facts and details are available for a constructive policy that will prevent poor people from fleeing their countries due to lack of protection, choice and justice in their home countries. We know their domestic economies neglect them, and make it easy for elites inside and outside their communities to exploit them. Their decisions to leave their communities and countries are made from a desperate impulse to survive, as they get trapped into a second, third or fourth class citizenship, or become person non-grata, in the United States.
How far will a system go to make sure that non-aliens, labeled real Americans, are the only ones who remain, breed and prosper - no matter how poorly they read, think and act? How far should we go to deport - even those early immigrants who came to the US illegally, or when immigration laws and its enforcements were lax? Are we willing to evaluate the legality of the ancestors who might have given birth to men like Jared Lee Loughner, a mentally unstable man who shot and killed 13 Americans - including a 9 year old child and a reputed State judge?
Men of cloth, like Reverend Huckabee who ran for the Presidency and plans to run again, very disturbingly attack anti-imperialist views of people whose countries painfully struggled against colonialism - including his country "The United States of America". What is Huckabee assuming? That colonialism, even for America, is good?
How can the Tea Party, that Huckabee belongs to, consider itself a great protector and defender of freedom and rights when it forgets America's great revolutionary past -against colonial tyranny and slavery?
Will American Libertarians and Conservatives get strong enough to start deporting people among them, their families and communities, who came illegally (decades or generations ago), or with inadequate documentation, no matter how old, how fair skinned and how Conservative? If they want to have a social litmus test for who is "a real reliable American"...how far are they willing to go into their own past? Would they be willing to deport the great great grand children of illegal immigrants from Europe - especially when their progenies have committed financial crimes or assassinations like Jared Lee Loughner?
Tell me Conservatives and Tea Party activists...how far do you want to take this?
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