The Politics of Immigration (2nd Edition). David Wilson

This book is dedicated with respect and admiration to everyone who is resisting deportation, detention, discrimination, exploitation, and oppression.

Acknowledgments

WE THANK JOHN MAGE AND CAROL SKELSKEY SOTO at Monthly Review Press for suggesting the original idea for this book and trusting us to write it, and the whole team at Monthly Review for their support and patience.

Our sincere gratitude goes to all the people who took the time to review the manuscript and share their thoughts and suggestions. We are especially thankful to Sam and Phyllis Guskin, David B. Wilson, and Amy Gottlieb (of American Friends Service Committee), for helpful feedback on both editions. For the second edition we were fortunate to receive valuable input from Donald Anthonyson (Families for Freedom), Diana Eusebio (New York State Youth Leadership Council), Ishan Ashutosh, Oriana Sanchez, Ron Hayduk, Partha Banerjee, and Eleazar Castillo. For help with research questions we are grateful to Ronald Coleman at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Tory Johnson at the American Immigration Council, Katy Long, sociologists Annette Bernhardt, Douglas Massey, and Rubén Rumbaut, and historians Richard Breitman, Peter Staudenmaier, and John Womack. For advice on technical matters related to the second edition, we thank Anthony Arnove, Ramsey Kanaan of PM Press, and Greg Ruggiero at City Lights.

We remain indebted to those who contributed feedback on the first edition: Amy Sugimori (La Fuente, a Tri-State Worker & Community Fund), Carter Wilson, Aarti Shahani (Families for Freedom), Ken Estey, Arnoldo García (National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights), David Bacon, Mark Dow, and Will Coley.

Special thanks go to the people who organized and hosted dialogues and speaking events with us: Martin Alvarado, Judy Ancel, Dahoud André, Ernest Banatte, Scott Borchert, Marta Caminero-Santangelo, Dick Eiden, Bill and Connie Flores, Jon Flanders and Nancy Wallace, Leo J. Garofalo, Ursula Levelt, Star Murray, Emily Noelle Sanchez Ignacio, Eric Schuster, and Moisés Villavicencio Barras (with apologies to those not mentioned here by name). We also recognize the contributions of everyone who, through their participation in these events, gave us ideas and helped to shape our thinking on the issues.

Naturally, we take full responsibility for any errors or shortcomings that may be found in the book.

Introduction

THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK was written in the wake of the massive demonstrations, strikes, and walkouts that immigrants and their supporters carried out in the spring of 2006, and as churches across the United States were banding together to forge a new “sanctuary” movement in support of immigrants and their families resisting deportation.

That resistance has continued, taking new forms. Thousands of immigrant youth who grew up in the United States—sometimes referred to as “dreamers”—have forced a major shift in public perception by “outing” themselves as “undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic” and adopting increasingly radical tactics of active nonviolence. When civil disobedience actions like blocking streets, occupying politicians’ offices, or camping out in front of government buildings didn’t win their demands, these young activists upped the ante: some deliberately turned themselves in to immigration enforcement authorities in order to reject fear and organize resistance within the detention centers where they were locked up, and some left the country and returned en masse to nonviolently confront border authorities and demand reentry to the country where they came of age.

This kind of grassroots organizing and mobilizing is often effective, but it can also provoke backlash. A major goal of this book is to diminish that backlash by addressing people’s concerns about immigration.

Since the first edition of this book was published, we have facilitated numerous dialogues on immigration with students, activists, and others in communities throughout the United States. These dialogues have reinforced our impression that many people are open to a deeper understanding of immigration and the forces that drive it.

As we said in 2007: “Every day, more people are realizing that immigrants are here to stay. They are our friends, our parents, our partners, our neighbors, ourselves. Either

Скачать книгу