Progress Illinois

Two years ago this week, spurred by Wisconsin Representative Jim Sensenbrenner's punitive immigration bill H.R. 4437, immigrants and their allies flooded America's streets in the largest immigration marches in recent U.S. history. In Chicago alone, 300,000 demonstrators turned out to voice their support for comprehensive immigration reform, including an estimated 70 percent of students from predominantly-Latino schools. Thanks in large part to this public condemnation of the legislation, the U.S. Senate voted it down, a significant victory for the growing immigrant rights movement.

Sadly, the political landscape regarding immigration hasn't improved much since 2006. Legislators in Washington D.C. balked on comprehensive reform in 2006 and 2007 and a bill now floating through Congress is almost as toxic as Sensenbrenner's. Meanwhile, Latinos in Chicagoland are facing problems beyond border concerns – in education, housing, and employment -- that have yet to be addressed adequately. So on May 1, citizens will hit the streets in honor of International Workers' Day, speaking out against legislation that criminalizes immigrants and the broader inequities the Latino community faces.

What should Chicagoans expect at the demonstration this Thursday?

For one, a diverse assortment of participants. Over 200 organizations, ranging from community-based groups to unions to student associations to religious congregations, are sponsoring this year's May Day marches, a testament to the popularity of comprehensive immigration reform in the region. Beginning with a 10 AM rally at Union Park, organizers are anticipating that thousands will turnout for the march, which begins two hours later and will wind its way from the West Side toward the city's downtown. In solidarity with laborers around the globe, speakers will stress the importance of fair wages and equal rights in the workplace for all workers. “The main goal is to make people understand that May Day is a workers' day,” says Rosi Carrasco, an organizer of the marches and a staff member of the Latino organization of the Southwest, “and that it's important to have a solution for the [12] million workers that are in the United States and are undocumented.”

The SAVE Act

March organizers agree that one current piece of federal legislation doesn't offer such a solution: the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act, authored by freshman Rep. Heath Schuler (D-NC) and co-sponsored by more than 160 other members of Congress, including four Illinois Republicans and Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean.

Intended to give political cover to Democrats in conservative districts where illegal immigration is especially divisive, the SAVE Act offers no path to citizenship for the nation's undocumented workers. Instead, it would add 8,000 border enforcement agents, require employers to use an E-verify national database of eligible workers, and accelerate the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Carrasco says the act, with its enforcement emphasis, is reminiscent of H.R. 4437. “It's important to understand that [undocumented] workers are working here, they are not criminals … and they deserve to be treated with human rights,” she says. “The SAVE Act is only an attempt to criminalize immigrant workers again.”

By referring it to House Judiciary Committee, which is expected to hold hearings on the issue in the coming weeks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) effectively shelved the bill. But in March, House Republicans decided to exploit internal tensions among their rival party by circulating a discharge petition that would force a vote on the House floor if half of the Representatives signed. The House Democratic leadership has done its best to block the maneuver, convincing 39 Democratic-cosponsors -- Bean among them – not to initial the petition. But if more effective pressure is applied, the SAVE Act could see the light of day before year's end, a development immigrants rights advocates fear.

A rise in raids and detainments

The escalation of workplace raids is another point of contention for the May Day marchers. In lieu of comprehensive immigration reform, many states and local officials have ramped up their own immigration enforcement measures, which they are often not qualified to perform. To compensate, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has doubled-down on its own efforts to raid workplaces, detaining four times as many undocumented workers in 2007 as they had just two years prior.

For example, 17 immigrants were arrested in February and detained for several weeks after an immigration raid at a candy packaging plant in suburban Arlington Heights. The detainees and their advocates told In These Times that they were strip-searched, denied medical attention, and coerced to sign deportation papers they did not fully understand. An additional 60 immigrants were arrested at a Cargill pork packing plant in downstate Beardstown just four days before Easter.

This year is no different; in multiple states on April 16, agents canvassed seven Mexican restaurants, five chicken-processing plants, and a doughnut company, yielding 300 arrests. This came after assurances from the Department of Homeland Security, which has direct control over ICE, that raids would be curtailed in 2008.

“In the last year … the raids and deportations are continuing and hurting our communities,” says Carrasco. “It’s not fair that our families have been divided simply because of the acts of ICE, and we want them to stop.”

As raids and deportations rise, so do the number of detainees jails must hold, some of whom are seeking asylum and are awaiting court dates. That’s why Carrasco and her allies are also promoting a bill currently being considered by the Illinois General Assembly: the Access to Religious Ministry Act (HB 2747), which would give immigration detainees in county jails the same access to religious workers -- priests, nuns, ministers, rabbis, imams, and other clergy -- as the criminal populations.

Forging a black-brown coalition

While immigration concerns will take center stage at Thursday’s protest, it won’t be the demonstrators’ sole focus. Forging closer ties between Chicago’s Latino and African-American populations is also one of their objectives.

On April 4, the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Latino immigration activists announced efforts to develop a “black-brown coalition” that would push for immigration reform and school safety, among other issues. Hoping to use the May Day march as a springboard, organizers have paid for radio spots and announcements during church services and union meetings to garner more African-American interest in the rally.

Quality of life concerns are also crucial to many Latino activists. According to Maricela Garcia, the executive director of the Chicago-based Latino Policy Forum, the fiery debate over our nation’s immigration policies has obscured wider angst about disparities facing Chicagoland Latinos, of which 70 percent of adults and 90 percent of children are U.S. citizens. “Immigration is important but it’s not the only issue,” says Garcia. “People feel that we are not addressing those critical issues of employment, education, and housing because we have been forced to reduce the Latino policy agenda to immigration.”

Based on meetings with more than 600 Chicago-area civic leaders, religious representatives, elected officials and community activists over the past two years, the Latino Policy Forum's newly released report “An American Agenda From a Latino Perspective” details the needs expressed by Latinos as they pursue socioeconomic and political equity in America. Access to quality housing -- encumbered by the dearth of affordable housing stock, continued housing discrimination, and the foreclosure crisis -- and well-paying employment were prime insecurities, but equity in education topped the list. Thanks to a “lack of facilities for preschool, programs, overcrowded and under resourced schools, and teachers and administrators that lack understanding and skills to effectively motivate and teach Latino students and engage their parents,” only 53 percent of Chicagoland Latinos graduate high school in four years.

“It’s very disheartening,” says Garcia, “to see a community that considers education very valuable so frustrated about the failure of the Chicago school system and the suburban school districts to educate Latino children.”

Respondents also recognized that addressing these injustices would take a concerted effort to engage Latinos politically and push community leaders into positions of power. “People feel that without investing in leadership development and engaging the Latino community in civic participation,” says Garcia, “it’s going to be very hard to move any policy agenda.”

On the electoral end, progress is obvious; Bill Foster's 14th congressional district upset, in which Latinos played an instrumental role through get-out-the-vote drives, is a prime example. This year's May Day march, with its extensive focus and sundry of sponsors, should be another valuable step.

Images of the 2006 march used under a Creative Commons License by Flickr user jvoves.