What Next for the Immigrants Rights Movement?
By LEE SUSTAR Amid ramped-up federal raids on undocumented workers and a raft of new anti-immigrant legislation at the state level, the immigrant rights movement is building grassroots emergency response networks–while debating what to demand from expected immigration legislation in Congress. What is emerging is a strategy encapsulated in the phrase “legalization for all”–a rejection of any legislative proposal that would limit eligibility for guest-worker programs to undocumented workers who have been in the U.S. for a specified time period, while excluding the rest. The approach is intended to keep in one camp both organizations that have accepted guest-worker proposals and more militant immigrant groups that oppose such measures as second-class citizenship, according to Nativo López, president of the Mexican American Political Association. “Legalization for all, as well as demilitarization of the border, have became the minimum basis for the alliance,” López said in an interview.
