For war and workers? Julie Quiroz-Martinez finds labor unions and grassroots organizers struggling to define immigrant rights post-9/11. (A New Era).

By the time you read this, an estimated 5,000 airport baggage screeners will have lost their jobs. The reason: they were guilty of being immigrants.

Welcome to post-9/11 America, where birth in another country can and will be used against you. While millions of dollars have poured in for victims of the September attack, widows of dishwashers who died in the World Trade Center face life without access to any government benefits. National polls show strong support for identification cards and special surveillance for people with an "Arab" appearance. And while immigrants ship our to Western Asia for combat duty, their relatives back home can't be trusted to work in airport security.

It's hard to believe that just a few months ago, organizers from immigrant rights groups and labor unions had been swept up in the momentum of the legalization movement, planning a national march on Washington for September 25. According to Fernando Garcia of the Border Network for Human Rights, "Unions, immigrant rights, and faith sectors had started to come together around some basic principles" for a process of permanent legalization for undocumented immigrants--principles that challenged the market-oriented conception of President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox.

"The question was not whether legalization was going to happen. It was what kind. We could taste it," Garcia says.

But the "war on terrorism" has dramatically reshaped the direction of these issues. The AFL-CIO, reliant on Latino immigrant workers, has expanded its commitment to undocumented immigrants -while adopting a patriotic stance in favor of Bush's war. In the words of AFL-CIO President, John Sweeney, "We will support the United States government in its efforts to defend America and its people, through the just use of military force ..."

For their part, immigrant rights organizers who had pushed for legalization within a progressive human tights framework are now struggling to regroup and rebuild. In the aftermath of September 11, it remains to be seen just how "immigrant rights" will be defined and what a labor-immigrant alliance will look like.

Tensions in the AFL 

At the AFL-CIO's national conference in early December, issues of 9/11 and immigrant rights figured prominently. In one heart-wrenching presentation sponsored by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union (HERE), the widow of an undocumented Ecuadorian cook who had worked in the World Trade Center spoke of her grief and need for financial assistance. Others, such as Terry O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers' International Union, also spoke out. "We need to focus on what happens to undocumented immigrants and their families," says O'Sullivan, who represents mostly construction workers. "The families of victims of the World Trade Center attack need access to unemployment and food stamps. Also those displaced due to the tragedy and the economy.

In fact, the AFL's "Resolution 5," passed at the conference, calls for "federal, state, and local action" to ensure that immigrant workers and their families who are direct victims of 9/11 or its aftermath "be treated the same as their U.S. citizen counterparts with regard to benefits and services."

Resolution 5 also reaffirms the commitment to legalization made by the AFL Executive Committee in February 2000. According to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Regional Director Ben Monteroso, "The legalization agenda hasn't changed. The question is how quickly we can get it back onto the national radar." O'Sullivan agrees: We can't stand back and wait on this issue. There are too many people relying on us. This is a litmus test for who we are and what we're all about. This is the right fight at the right time."

But according to Luisa Blue, national president of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), the language in Resolution 5 reflects some struggle. "The resolution's language on terrorism included something on how tightening the border is justifiable. So, APALA approached the drafters to say 'this is a problem.' While we weren't able to get the language taken our, we did convince them to put some pro-immigrant language next to it as a counterbalance." Blue also reports that the AFL's Immigration Committee successfully "fought off" wording in an earlier draft calling for increased border patrol funding.

Ultimately, Resolution 5 tries to have it both ways. On one side, the resolution declares that the AFL is "fully committed to defending our nation" and "that the nature of the war ... may justify some tightening of immigrant laws and procedures." On the other, Resolution 5 cautions against national security measures that may "overreach" and cause discrimination against immigrants or workers.

The tensions within the AFL's position have already become apparent. For example, when Congress passed the Federal Aviation Security Act in fall 2001, the AFL failed to oppose new provisions requiring at least one year of citizenship for all airport screeners. The AFL's silence "was a big step backward for immigrant rights in labor" says Blue, who has been organizing predominantly Filipino airport screeners at San Francisco International Airport. Blue estimates that half will be unable to meet the new citizenship requirements. Organizers are working with the airport to try to save the screeners' jobs by launching a special program allowed under the new law.

Regardless of the AFL's position, SEIU is making elimination of the screeners' citizenship requirement a top issue. "Nationally, SEIU is looking at the possibility of a lawsuit on behalf of the screeners, and legislation to get rid of the citizenship requirement," says Blue.

Immigrant Rights in Retrenchment 

A year ago, grassroots immigrant rights mobilizing had made Washington policy wonks stand up and take notice. Once an idealistic dream, legalization had emerged as a viable policy demand. Now, D.C. advocates are telling organizers that legalization is a dead issue--and that reviving it would be political suicide. The question is: can grassroots immigrant rights organizing succeed in rebuilding a principled legalization movement?

The challenges are enormous. "After September 11 we saw a big drop in participation in our grassroots membership groups", says Lisa Castellanos of Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network (SIREN) in San Jose, California. "People are really afraid. So, where we used to have meetings with an action agenda, we're now having potlucks so people can feel safe coming together."

Nieves Negrete reports a similar atmosphere. "Since 9/11 we've needed to regroup, says the director of the Washington Alliance for Immigrant and Refugee Justice. "People are feeling more cautious. As a result, the undocumented are suffering."

Of course, being "legal" is no guarantee of protection. Both Negrere and Castellanos are gearing up for major baffles against state cuts in government benefits to legal immigrants--cuts they see as evidence of immigrants' weakened political clout. "What's pressing in immigrant communities has changed," observes Claudia Gomez of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR). "We're facing extraordinary detention issues, especially among Arab Americans, a new urgency on the problem of INS/police cooperation, and folks dealing with the immediacy of the economic recession. All of this informs the immigrant rights agenda and how we think about legalization."

"We're never going to put aside legalization," concludes Negrere, "but we need to refocus our energy. We don't have the resources we need to mount a major campaign."

Despite these challenges, in November, about 50 immigrant rights and labor activists came together in El Paso to figure out what could be done. Rejecting the advice of the D.C. advocates, organizers at the November meeting agreed that a new legalization strategy must be developed and moved forward. After much discussion, participants decided to reaffirm the principles that had been developed for the September 25 mobilization. These principles focus on five areas: 1) permanent residency for undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States; 2) a legalization process for future immigrants based on the right of entry, the right to employment, and the right to permanent residency; 3) protection of immigrant rights including repeal of employer sanctions and the right to organize; 4) protection of human and civil rights in immigration enforcement; and 5) immigration reforms including resolution of pending backlogs and new opportunities for family unification.

Participants also agreed to expand the principles to confront the new attacks on civil liberties and constitutional rights. According to Francisco Arguelles, who attended the conference on behalf of the National Organizers Alliance, 9/11 has served to underscore the importance of deep and sustained community organizing. "9/11 showed us how important it is to be organizing around principles, not just a particular piece of legislation or a particular campaign."

What Frame Legalization?

Before 9/11, progressives in labor and immigrant rights faced the danger that President Bush would succeed in turning the "legalization" agenda into an exploitive new guestworker program. Now, new dangers have emerged from within the ranks of the movement.

"I have fears" says Fernando Garcia, "that some people, including our companeros in unions, believe the only way to get legalization is to define it as an issue of national securiry, as a process for identifying everyone."

Indeed, the AFL's position in support of the "war on terrorism", combined with the silence of most other unions, leaves the door wide open for such framing. In fact, some of the most progressive voices in labor, such as the Laborers' O'Sullivan, are strident in their patriotic rhetoric. "We are completely supportive of the President," says O'Sullivan. "We are as American as any other organization."

And while calling for boldness on the issue of legalization, union leaders like Monteroso of SEIU believe immigrants must be cautious in voicing opposition to the war. "Immigrants are not in a position to speak out," argues Monteroso, "because people will say we should not be here because we are not 'real' Americans."

For Fernando Garcia, pushing for legalization while supporting the "war on terrorism" is "absurd." "We can't think that the war is on the 'outside' and everything is okay on the 'inside,'" says Garcia. "The separation of these issues is really superficial. The 'homeland defense' agenda and the war are two parts of the same thing." Moreover, Garcia points out that the United States now wants Mexico to adopt the same kind of internal repression measures recently passed by the U.S. Congress. "We're going to see the U.S. government pushing to attach 'security measures' to any migratory agreement."

For NNIRR's Gomez, how the legalization movement positions itself in relation to the war is "a very heavy question." And, because "all organizing is now being framed as unpatriotic," legalization activists may find it difficult to challenge U.S. immigration policy without challenging other policies emerging from 9/11. In fact, observes Gomez, one recent legalization rally was reported by the media "as an anti-war rally, even though war wasn't even mentioned."

Last year, progressives in immigrant rights and labor asked the question, "Legalization for what?" pushing the movement to focus beyond just access to a green card. Today, the question might well be "Legalization at what price?"

In the words of Fernando Garcia, framing legalization as an issue of patriotism and national security instead of human rights, "would be a trap. Patriotism has come to mean supporting injustices. The larger picture here is really scary."

Julie Quiroz-Martinez is associate director of the Center for Third World Organizing.

Julie Quiroz-Martinez, "For War and Workers?" Julie is associate director of the Center for Third World Organizing where she is developing a new program focus on racial justice and immigrant rights.