The United States – a country that can be said to have been born of immigration and which, particularly in the decades between the 1800s and the 1900s, founded its economic power on cheap immigrant labour – has a long history of measures for the control and regulation of the migratory flux which demonstrate clearly how they correspond to the needs of the labour market and not to ethical or humanitarian scruples.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for example, which was progressively revisited, extended and finally abrogated but not until 1943, prohibited entry to the United States by any more Chinese workers, skilled or not, admitting only traders, diplomatic staff and students. Since immigration by Chinese workers employed in the gold and silver mines of the west and in the building of the big, transcontinental railroads, whilst waiting for their families to join them, had already been going on for many decades, the 1882 law, with its subsequent appendices and extensions ended up by creating almost exclusively male communities (Chinatowns) – known as the “bachelor society”.
Taking advantage of the San Francisco earthquake and fire (1906), which destroyed most of the municipal offices and archives, many of these “bachelors” managed to have their wives and children join them, using false documents; others, to get round the state laws which prohibited their marriage to white women, cohabited with Irish women, considered the lowest rung on the social ladder. The 1943 abrogation of the Chinese Exclusion Act, with the approval of the new Magnuson Act, corresponded to the needs of the world war going on at the time: it naturalized the Chinese already resident on American soil (though without, in some States, acknowledging their right to own property or business or trading enterprises), re-opened access for a limited number of them (105 a year) and allowed access to “war wives” (young women whom Chinese-American servicemen had met in the Pacific theatre of war). The remaining limitations were not abrogated until the mid-‘sixties.
In the meantime, however, between 1880 and 2004, whilst the doors to Asian immigration were closing, those to immigration from the Old World were thrown open. It will be sufficient here to recall a few, striking figures: 1881-1890, 5.2 million; 1891-1900: 3.6 million; 1901-1910: 8.7 million; 1911-1920: 5.7 million; of these roughly 23 million immigrants, the vast majority came from southern and eastern Europe. Not only: the end of the American civil war in 1864, with the abolition of slavery and the reorganization of the country in an exclusively capitalist-industrial perspective, created an enormous reserve of new “free” labour: former slaves and their children, transformed into farm workers, sharecroppers and unskilled workers. There is no need to emphasize the enormous amount of plusvalue extracted from surplus labour by this incredible mass of cheap labourers – the lightning economic development of the United States, which, at the end of the First World War, was winning the historical title of the most powerful capitalist country from Great Britain, had its origins there.
Then, in 1921, the Emergency Immigration Act and, above all the Immigration Act of 1924, shut off the flow: with the ideological purpose of “preserving the idea of American homogeneity” (amply anticipating by about ten years the Italian “race laws”!), a limit on entry was introduced – 2% of the numbers of each individual nationality resident on American soil according to the 1890 Census. The legislation thus penalized immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and Asia: at the same time, it left the doors open to immigration from Central and South America.
And in fact in the following decades (the “roaring ‘twenties” when all the conditions were building up for the crash of ’29; the Great Depression of the ‘thirties; the immediate second post-war period marked by economic expansion), immigration grew, particularly from Mexico and Puerto Rico, with the creation of new reserves of super-blackmailable, super-exploited and super-persecuted labour (persecuted both legally and illegally: there were countless attacks and murders of Mexican-American workers, just as there were countless repressive measures introduced at state or local levels). The extraction of plusvalue from surplus labour carried on massively and unrelentingly. Yet, even within this all-American (in the sense of “continental”) flux, numerous measures adopted over time help to enlighten us and understand the dynamics and reasons for the control of migratory flows. For example, on the basis of the operation known as “Mexican Repatriation” between 1929 and 1939, around one million people of Mexican origin were forced to return to Mexico, independently of the fact that many of them were American citizens to all effects or about to become so (in 2005 California was to vote a “Law of apology for the repatriation programme”! Up to the present the federal government has not pronounced itself in this regard); then, in 1942 (war years in which labour was scarce), along came the “Bracero Program”, a series of agreements with the Mexican government on the importation of temporary “laborers” (braceros): 4,200 in 1942, 444 thousand in 1959, 179 thousand in 1964, the year in which the “Program” was stopped. In the meantime, forced repatriation did not cease: in 1954 it was sanctioned by “Operation Wetback” (the clandestine immigrants who by night waded the Rio Grande, a long stretch of which marked the border between Mexico and the United States, were known as “wetbacks”), according to which the more or less illegal immigrants were sent back by ship and then (after several dramatic accidents) by truck and train. On the one hand, then, there was the need to have a constantly available “industrial reserve army”, to depress salaries and exercise constant blackmailing pressure on employed labour; on the other, a series of measures for the military occupation of the territory and open terrorism towards immigrants (as well as reassuring the disgusting “half classes”): thus in 1994 (under Clinton’s presidency), the infamous “Operation Gatekeeper” was implemented, to keep the Mexican-US border around San Diego (California) under control: a 9-thousand strong special force, check points, infra-red cameras, seismographs and underground sensors, reflectors and barbed wire, computerized systems, formations of vigilantes supporting police operations and a steel barrier 22 kilometres long and 3 metres high between Tijuana (Mexico) and San Isidro (California). According to official data, between 1998 and 2004 around two thousand people died along that border in their attempt to enter the United States clandestinely in search of work.
Something similar happened in Puerto Rico, which became an American protectorate in 1898. After granting American citizenship in 1917, the trickle of immigration from the island towards the mainland became a river: a first wave started in 1932 (collapse of raw sugar prices, demographic explosion); a second, coinciding with the Second World War (hands needed to replace “war absences” in the factories, cannon fodder on the war fronts); a third in the ‘fifties (the programme of forced industrialization known as “Operation Bootstrap” upsets the local economy consisting of small producers and farm workers); a fourth in the ‘seventies (coinciding with a new phase in the world economic crisis). Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans (as well as central and south Americans of various origins) thus join the Afro-Americans and other immigrants in the giant cauldron of labourers to be drawn upon by the American economy.
New “immigration reforms” will then be introduced in 1986, 1990 and 1996, modulating the migratory flow according to high and low points in the crisis of over-production of goods and capital we have been immersed in for more than three decades now. In the last four years of the Obama presidency, for example, there were a million and a half deportees (in 2012 alone, according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security, as many as 400 thousand people were deported, 90 thousand of whom prove to be the parents of American citizens!) (1). Not only this: the exquisitely democratic and progressive Obama administration broadened the deportation programmes, built new detention centres for immigrants and dispatched more thousands of frontier guards and contingents of National Guards to the south-western States.
As can be seen, “immigration policy” in the USA (as in any other country) obeys two main imperatives: on a material level, that of ensuring a reserve of cheap labour and a constant “industrial reserve army”, compatibly with the economic cycle, which depresses salaries and exercises blackmailing pressure on the rest of the employed proletariat; on an ideological level, that of fuelling the “war amongst the poor” and setting different sectors of the proletariat one against the other – the classical “divide et impera” (“divide and rule”).
With an eye to re-election, President Obama promised a “reform of immigration”, together with a law on arms. And the whole of the American political world (and not only) is quivering with excitement: ah, the “progressive” president! Ah, the regularly reborn “American democracy”! In fact, behind the rhetoric, things are a little different and, even though this reform will not be coming up for discussion for a few months yet, a “bi-partisan” group of senators is already at work and some significant trends are already to be seen (3). To legalize their position, the over 11 million illegal immigrants (official figures) will have to: a) register with the government offices in question; b) pass an examination to prove that their background and past is regular and legal, that they know English and that they have a job ( “proof of work”); c) pay a fine ( $ 10 thousand) and all outstanding taxes)
Clearly the vast majority of the over 11 million who had entered illegally, perhaps already after deportation and a clandestine return, with poor resources for survival, subject to the ups and downs of extremely precarious living and working conditions, will simply be excluded. The others, instead, the so-called “dreamers” (children of a better protected middle class), will not have difficulties. Precisely – divide et impera.
Moreover, as some analysts have already predicted (4), the process of regularization and naturalization may take a very long time: mention has even been made of around ten years. Not only this: as regards the future migratory flow, measures are foreseen that divide the immigrants into two categories: skilled and unskilled workers – needless to say, the latter category will be the one at a disadvantage, particularly as regards temporary work (building, factory work, hotels and restaurants, the food industry). Here illegal and clandestine labour will continue to rule, with the effects we have already described. At the same time, repressive measures are expected to become more severe, with a strict registration process for incoming migrants (biometric ID card).
To sum up, the bi-partisan project would actually produce the following consequences:
1) a good half of families without documents may have to sacrifice 1/3 of their income to pay for the fine established ($10 thousand!);
2) from 3.6 to 5.8 million clandestine immigrants may be excluded from the naturalization process due to insufficient “knowledge of English” (one of the requisites);
3) further millions may be excluded because of years-old past crimes, such as the use of false documents or possession of light drugs (two very common crimes in a régime of illegality)
4) over 1.6 million may be excluded because of the “at least 5 years residence” clause;
5) over one million (of whom 1/3 women) may be excluded because they are unable to demonstrate that they have secure employment;
6) 40 thousand homosexual couples may be excluded by the Defence of Marriage Act;
7) an unknown number may be excluded because of having returned after having been deported or having refused to leave the country after a deportation order;
8) finally, it is estimated that during the current year 400 thousand applicants may be deported according to the current laws, whilst the debate is still going on (5).
As can be seen, things are not what they seem to be, or what the official rhetoric of “fine sentiments” and the “democratic process” would have us imagine. We shall be following the planned “reform of immigration” closely, as we have already followed the “health reform” signed by Obama (6): certainly up to the present it looks like the umpteenth swindle for the proletariat. But the geese always pick up the bait.
Notes:
1.See: color lines.com/archives/2013/01/immigration_reform_primer.html.
2.idem
- See: The Wall Street Journal, 1/1/2013 and 30/1/2013
- See again: colorlines.com/archives/2013/01/immigration_reform_primer.html
5.The figures come from colorlines.com/archives/2013/02/how_millions_could_get_out_immigration_reform_primer.html
- See: “USA. La riforma sanitaria ennesimo inganno per i proletari [Health reform, the umpeenth rip-off for the proletariat]”, Il programma comunista, n.4/2010
International Communist Party