CDIR-USA 2008 Update

-01-16 3:43 AM +0800

Struggle Against Anti- Immigrant Laws and Discrimination- CDIR

Los Angeles-- The Coalition in Defense of Immigrant Rights (CDIR)-USA expresses deep concern that while the presidential campaign is going to its high gear, the anti- immigrant advocates are on the offensive.

According to the CDIR, the anti-immigrant forces are trying to frame the Republican Party debates to focus on illegal immigration and some elements in different states are passing discriminatory laws against immigrants. Candidate Mitt Romney kept on calling the McCain proposal an “amnesty”. At the same time, the Democratic Party is quiet on the subject.

Meanwhile, the state of Arizona, on Jan. 1, 2008, enacted a piece of legislation aimed at destroying the ability of immigrant workers in the state to work and live. The vicious and inhumane Legal Arizona Workers Act was easily passed by a fired-up state legislature, and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano who decided to support the candidacy of Illinois Senator Barrack Obama for president.

Resurgent Racist Anti-Immigrant Laws

The law is the first of its kind to be enacted in the United States. A similar law in Tennessee also takes effect this month, and Oklahoma will implement one in July.

The CDIR feels that the statute, a legal expression of the right-wing drive against the Immigrant community, has been pushed by extremist groups like the Minutemen, and other lynch mob type groups like the Klu Klux Klan.

The CDIR believes that it is reminiscent of the anti-Asian (Yellow Peril) movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that finally led to the passage of the infamous federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Anti-Miscegenation Act that forbids immigrants to marry American women and later to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The CDIR is dismayed that the legal efforts by immigrant rights advocates, civil liberties groups and large sections of the business community to declare the law as unconstitutional were shot down on December 21, 2007, by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding an earlier ruling by federal judge Neil Wake. Wake refused to issue a stay to block the state from enforcing the new law.

Many business owners, including large corporations, are stating that they have dropped plans for expansion in Arizona. It is important to note that these capitalists are only opposing the bill because it curtails their ability to make mega-profits by super-exploiting immigrant labor.

A study from the University of Arizona recently showed that in the Construction sector alone, immigrant workers will lose 56,000 jobs, amounting to .6 billion lost in economic output and 0 million lost by in state revenues.

The CDIR concluded that in an economic climate with the threat of a coming recession marked by a falling housing market, a central component of the racists’ program is to scapegoat immigrants as responsible for the Wall Street-engendered housing crunch.

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