[Peace-discuss] My letter in today's News-Gazette

[David Green]

(As read and discussed on the most recent edition of News from Neptune)


Immigration is about exploitation

While immigration policy has historically been rhetorically shaped by
racism, it has been more fundamentally structured by globalized economic
exploitation and (since WWII) our foreign wars and geopolitical alliances.
During this four-decade neoliberal era, immigration policies of all
administrations have been consistent with massive redistribution of income/
wealth upwards, decline of unions, austerity and “free trade” policies that
offshore jobs, suppress wages and send economic refugees north (NAFTA).

Compassionate immigration policies are, obviously, desirable. Nevertheless,
such controversies obscure continuities regarding the abandonment of
American workers (and children), while stereotyping them (especially
African-American
and rural folk) as “unskilled.”

When Jeffrey Brown advocates for increased immigration, he promotes
intensified immiseration of the working class; that’s what business school
deans do. When Mike Doyle of the campus YMCA supports business leaders’
“Heartland” and HB1 agenda, he displays his ignorance and compromises his
institution.

The supporters of our “welcoming community” — Bend the Arc, Solidarity
Sundays, CU Immigration Forum, etc. — are oblivious to the class politics
behind their agenda. That’s because they’re immersed in class privilege,
while disingenuously claiming to have rejected “white privilege.”

Ironically, Thomas Garza of the Immigration Forum (read Immigration
Doctrine) stereotypes those who disagree with his views as xenophobic
bigots, thus revealing his own bigotry.

Garza’s overtly anti-Trumpian electoral advocacy serves establishment
Democrats (anti-Sanders/ Gabbard, pro-Biden). Thus, when the Urbana Free
Library endorses Garza’s annual awards program, it not only displays
inappropriate partisanship, it effectively supports Brown’s 1 percent,
Gies-driven, pitiless economic agenda.

DAVID GREEN Champaign
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