"The World Can’t Wait organizes people living in the United States to repudiate and stop the fascist direction initiated by the Bush Regime, including: the murderous, unjust and illegitimate occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; the global “war of terror” of torture, rendition and spying; and the culture of bigotry, intolerance and greed."
-from World Can't Wait's mission statement adopted 2009
Included within the fascist direction that we work to reverse is the "culture of bigotry, intolerance and greed." Here we answer some frequently asked questions on our support for immigrant rights:
Doesn't "illegal" mean illegal?
No human being can be illegal. Laws change and can be just or unjust, and we are not bound by whatever is "on the books" at any given moment. Torture has been legalized, but we will not stop protesting and resisting this crime against humanity until torture stops being carried out in our names. Would the invasion of Iraq be any more acceptable if it was technically legal? While slavery is now illegal, it was once the law of the land. It is unethical to silence our opposition to discrimination against immigrants, documented or undocumented, because of whatever laws are instituted.
Why are you opposed to Arizona's new law, SB1070?
This law is a serious step in a fascist direction, and differs from all other state laws. It states that law enforcement must ask for proof of citizenship or residency from anyone they "suspect" is illegal. This means racial profiling on a massive scale, as anyone brown-skinned can expect to be questioned and potentially detained any time they leave the house. This law discriminates against all Latinos; but even worse, further isolates and marginalizes undocumented immigrants who live in fear of being suddenly separated from their families, imprisoned, and deported. For more read Arizona's anti-Immigrant Law is Inhumane & Illegitimate. However, Arizona is not the only problem. For an idea of the suffering imposed on immigrants detained in other parts of the US by the federal government, see Letters from an Immigrant Detainee.
But don't illegal immigrants drive down wages, drain the economy and social services?
These are the main talking points which have snookered people. However, they are factually untrue. In fact, there is no correlation between wages going down and immigrants. In addition, immigrants have contributed billions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare, without ever hoping to draw these benefits themselves. Their input has even been factored into government budgets - budgets which, by design, require their input without benefit in order to work! See the New York Times: Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
and Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye
But if that's not true, why do I hear it so often? How could so many people be wrong?
Well, have you ever heard the term "scapegoating?" There's no denying the global economy is seriously unsteady and people are being affected by it in the US. But that is what you have to look at: the global economy. Recent immigration from Mexico, for instance, cannot be separated from the effect that NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) has had on Mexico's industry and agriculture (Download Oxfam report). Markets flooded with US-subsidized corn imports have driven many Mexican farmers out of business and off their land, while factories once set up by US corporations have closed down in search of even cheaper labor in China or other places in Asia. The economic forces affecting people's livelihoods, whether here or in other parts of the world, are guided by profitability and greed, not by immigrants seeking a better life for themselves or their families through low-paying jobs here.
"If the immigrant pickers did not come north across the border, the strawberries would."
You have to look deeper to discover what is really at work here. Protesters marching in Arizona recently carried a banner that said: “There is no problem with immigration; there is a problem with capitalism."
On July 28, federal judge Susan Bolton issued a ruling that "enjoined"—temporarily prevented—Arizona from enacting four major sections of a vicious anti-immigrant law SB 1070. Nine other provisions became state law on July 29.
After all is said and done, what much of the so-called Tea Party wants is a return to America as a White Man’s Country. There are a few obstacles in their way, including the U.S. Constitution, but that’s not insurmountable.
“On a daily basis pundits and politicians rear their ugly heads to say that the children born of undocumented persons should no longer be given American citizenship.”
Note – numerous musicians and artists have been boycotting Arizona in protest of its anti-immigrant law SB1070.
Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes said recently in defense of his participation in the boycott “The only thing, clearly, that these people (behind 1070) care about is Money and Power, that and the creation and preservation of an Anglo-Centric Police State where every Immigrant and Non-White citizen is considered subhuman. They want them stripped of their basic human rights and reduced to slaves for Corporate America and the White Race. They are engaged in blatant class warfare. It is evil, pure and simple.”
Lady Gaga recently decided to hold her Phoenix concert – but on at least two occasions called on people in the audience to continue protesting this unjust law. She also wrote “Stop SB 1070” on her arm during her performance.
We've been in the middle of a very intense battle here in Arizona. Folks have been shutting down the jail, protesting at the Sheriff's compound where Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio keeps his notorious "tent city", taking to the streets, confronting Minutemen and Nazis, and disrupting Russell Pearce's fascist pep rally Saturday.
All of this is very good and needs to continue, injunction or not.
These letters were received by the World Can't Wait office from a citizen of a Central American country who had been in the U.S. for many years, and recently put into ICE detention.
We are sharing them to show that Arizona is not unusual in its treatment of people from other countries. This is business as usual across the country - even in liberal northeastern states.
March 28, 2010
Dear _____,
As you can see, I am in a federal prison. It’s a huge maximum-security prison. Not even the state of New Jersey has these high tech torture chambers. You walk through a long hallway. At the end, like a cave, is a block where you go into a cell, get isolated, away from every official who runs this prison. You never know who is who and what is what. I can’t imagine what being in Guantánamo is like, poor souls.
These letters were received by the World Can't Wait office from a citizen of a Central American country who had been in the U.S. for many years, and recently put into ICE detention.
We are sharing them to show that Arizona is not unusual in its treatment of people from other countries. This is business as usual in even liberal northeastern states.
Francisco has been in Phoenix, Arizona without papers for 14 years, but he says he's now afraid to walk the streets.
"I got my family, my kids born here," Francisco said tearfully. "And now I have come back to Mexico."
Francisco and his family are joining a growing exodus of illegal immigrants. They say they are driven by fear. They leave behind vacant apartments, empty shops and desks at school.
On Thursday, July 29, the unjust Arizona law SB 1070 targeting immigrants is set to go into effect. The law requires that police demand proof of legal residency from anyone they "stop, detain or arrest" if police suspect that person is an undocumented immigrant. 11 other states are considering such legislation.
On Thursday, July 29, the unjust Arizona law SB 1070 targeting immigrants is set to go into effect. The law requires that police demand proof of legal residency from anyone they "stop, detain or arrest" if police suspect that person is an undocumented immigrant. 11 other states are considering such legislation including Pennsylvania.
This week, two Utah state workers were fired for leaking a list of 1300 names, with addresses, of people they said were illegal immigrants receiving social services. Deseret News reported, "Leaders of Hispanic groups said at a Thursday press conference that 'the list' has made many Utah Latinos feel like Jews in Nazi Germany."
July 29 is the day that Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law, SB 1070, is set to go into effect. The law makes it a crime to willfully be in Arizona without proof of legal status. Once the police have stopped someone, whatever the legal justification, it requires them to demand papers if they even suspect the person could be an undocumented immigrant.
In effect, it legalizes racial profiling, exposing anyone and everyone to police interrogation and brutality if they "fit the description"—meaning they speak with an accent, have dark skin, dress in a certain way, or are found in the "immigrant" part of town.
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Initial Report from Arizona Freedom Summer
On Thursday, July 29, the unjust Arizona law SB 1070 targeting immigrants is set to go into effect. The law requires that police demand proof of legal residency from anyone they "stop, detain or arrest" if police suspect that person is an undocumented immigrant. 11 other states are considering such legislation.
This article originally appeared on the 
