45 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Accessible Marxist Analysis of Immigration, July 25, 2006
This review is from: No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border (Paperback)
If you want to cut through the Right's hysterical wailing about immigration, buy this extremely readable book. It's filled with little known facts about immigrants (they have a higher employment rate than the general population; they pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits), looks at the ebbs and flows of immigration to the U.S. and how it's been shaped by racism against different waves of immigrants, explains how immigration is manipulated by Corporate America to ensure they have a plentiful supply of cheap labor and how capital uses the fear of immigration to divide and rule the American working-class. The book examines how the border was created through wars of aggression on the part of the U.S., how policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement have devastated Mexico's small farmer class and forced them to look for work in the cities of the U.S., and brings the forgotten history of Mexican immigrants who engaged in bitter and bloody struggles against big agri-business in the South and West especially in the 1930s.
The closing chapters explain how the debate over immigration has moved progressively rightward in the last 30 years or so, as successive Democratic and Republican administrations have passed more and more draconian laws against undocumented workers, made the Border Patrol the largest federal law-enforcement agency with over 12,000 officers, and wasted tens of millions of dollars into creating walls at the border designed not to stop immigration but to push it into ever-more remote areas, increasing the likelihood that immigrants will die in the desert trying to get the U.S. and earn a better life. The racist politics of the Minutement, the new immigrants rights movement, and the struggle for a socialist world run by the world's workers without borders are the topics covered in the book's closing chapters.
Not only is this book indispensible for immigrants' rights and anti-racist fighters, it's also very much a history of the most exploited, oppressed, and marginalized part of the working-class: undocumented workers from Mexico, and Central and South America whose labor keeps this country going in a very real way. I would recommend getting this along with Sharon Smith's "Subterranean Fire" to round out one's understanding of the history and nature of working-class struggle here in the U.S.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Of course the one-star reviews never read the whole thing, June 5, 2010
This review is from: No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border (Paperback)
The title is deliberately meant to catch attention and does not really signify the message of the book. While this probably ups sales, it also makes the book a target for people hunting around for the purpose of finding things to complain about instead of giving accurate, logical reviews of entire works. This book gives a very comprehensive review of immigration-labor relations throughout the history of the US and contrary to what someoen who barely skimmed the intro would believe, it does not focus solely on modern-day issues or solely on Hispanics. It deals with issues that relate to every class of society.
Do the authors have an overarching purpose/message? Of course; you can't find a book in all of history taht doesn't. Should *your personal, current* preconceived notions about the subject immediately render the book useless garbage? Come on, now.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mostly about unions rather than illegal immigration, January 18, 2010
This review is from: No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border (Paperback)
I am a long-time opponent of open borders. I want American immigration laws enforced and strengthened. However, I also believe it is important to respect those who disagree with me and understand their arguments. For that reason I read this book. The authors do make some good points in the book, such as the need for reducing the power of corporations in the U.S.
The authors argue that a complete open-borders policy would be best for the United States and for workers in general. Surprisingly, the book is mostly about the history of union organizing in the American Southwest rather than about illegal immigration as such. Indeed, the authors seem to be anxious to muddy the waters as much as possible. They talk a lot about long-ago jailed union organizers and long-dead victims of racist violence; they want to present deportation of illegal aliens as no different from past discredited violence. The authors argue that current opposition to illegal immigration is nothing more than racism. I don't find this convincing. If opposition to illegal immigration is racism, why is it that Mexico has its own problems with illegal immigrants from other Latin American countries?
The authors are clearly big supporters of unions and see unions as the solution to labor problems in the U.S. and around the world. I am a union member myself, and I simply cannot agree with them. Unions have their uses. In the end, however, no union can change the fact that labor conditions are ultimately determined by the supply of workers and the demand for specific skills. If plenty of workers are available who can do the work for less, working conditions will not improve. The authors are very concerned about not only illegal immigrants, but also the plight of all Hispanic workers. The authors don't seem to understand that Hispanics legally in the U.S. are the ones with the most to lose from illegal immigration. The illegals compete directly with them for jobs. If the authors really want to benefit Hispanic workers, they should be advocating the elimination of farm subsidies and other policies that favor big farms over small farms. Rather than paying union dues, they should pool their money to buy land.
The authors argue that immigration benefits the U.S. economy. There are two problems with this argument. First, whether or not immigration benefits the U.S. economy is a completely separate question from whether or not illegal immigration benefits the U.S. economy. The authors present no evidence at all that illegal immigration benefits the U.S. economy. Second, it is necessary to look at the whole question of how economic activity is measured. The most commonly used measure is the GDP, which essentially counts up dollars spent. GDP has been a controversial statistic since its beginning. At best, it can be considered as a rough estimate of business activity. Immigration does tend to increase GDP, at least slightly, because more people buy more housing, more food, etc. GDP is NOT a measure of prosperity of a nation, of sustainable development, or of quality of life, and in many ways is highly misleading. For more on this, see
Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future and
Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop them All. The U.S. simply does not have room to take everyone who would like to come here.
The authors argue that high immigration is necessary to the stability of the U.S. economy, including the Social Security program. This is incorrect. It is true that the present-day Social Security system essentially operates as a giant Ponzi scheme. However, bringing in more new workers can't fix this system. The U.S. economy is already having trouble finding jobs for all workers. If new workers can't find good-paying jobs, they can't pay for anyone else's retirement. And when the new workers eventually retire, who is going to pay for their retirement? Are we going to bring in yet another wave of new workers? Where are the jobs going to come from for them? The authors don't mention peak oil, but they should. The U.S. economy in the next few decades is likely to experience serious problems as we adjust to lower supplies of fossil fuels. The U.S. government is going to be plenty busy trying to take care of its own citizens. For more on this, see
Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World.
One of the biggest changes in a post-peak oil society will be a much larger proportion of the U.S. population engaged in agriculture. Mexican-Americans have a historic opportunity here, because they have agricultural knowledge and experience in a time when that will be more precious than gold. So far they don't seem to realize that.
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