May Day Immigration March Offers Opportunity to Push Back Against Arizona

By Andy Thayer

Posted: April 28, 2010 12:28 PM

On Monday night hundreds came out to the Broadview Detention Center in suburban Chicago to protest the growing racism against immigrants epitomized by passage of an Arizona law widely seen as promoting racial profiling of Latinos.

The following morning, dozens were arrested in an attempt to blockade vans taking deportees out of the country.

Besides racial profiling, a particularly noxious provision of Arizona's SB 1070 will criminalize anyone who does not report undocumented immigrants in their midst -- effectively trying to turn teachers, healthcare workers, neighbors and religious advisers into agents of the government.

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Our movements have won their greatest gains not by dint of which party was in office, but by how powerful we were in the streets. And that power derives not just from large numbers in the streets, but even more importantly, our independence from both major parties.

A few years ago, huge numbers successfully mobilized against the Sensenbrenner bill. But once that bill was defeated, the immigration rights movement rapidly deflated, as many of its leaders gave political cover to the Democrats, who now held the main levers of power in Washington. Lack of opposition to the main power in DC tragically neutered the movement at a time when its huge numbers in the streets, combined with the momentum brought by the defeat of Sensenbrenner, could have been the springboard to widespread amnesties for the undocumented.

This Saturday's May Day march is an excellent opportunity to rebuild the elan of the movement seen in the early days against Sensenbrenner, and hopefully rebuild it on a far more solid political basis than the failed reliance on the Democrats.

The rally begins at 1 PM in Union Park (just south of the Green and Pink el lines' "Ashland" stop at Ashland Avenue and Lake Street, followed by a march to the Loop beginning at 3 PM.

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