Hazleton, Pennsylvania

[BreadBros]

Town strengthens illegal immigration law
Fri Sep 8, 2006 8:10pm ET163

By Jon Hurdle

HAZLETON, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Officials in the Pennsylvania town of Hazleton on Friday strengthened a local law designed to drive illegal immigrants away in a bid to defend the measure against legal challenges.

Hazleton City Council passed a new version of the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, an ordinance first passed in July that was already one of the toughest anti-illegal immigrant laws in the country. It has since been copied by other cities where illegal immigration is blamed for rising crime and overburdened social services.

The new law, approved by a vote of 4-1, increases pressure on local employers to avoid hiring illegal immigrants and raises fines for landlords who rent rooms to them.

Legal employees can now sue their employers for any work lost as a result of a business license being revoked because a company was found to have hired illegal immigrants.

The new law would also revoke a business license within three days of a violation being discovered. The previous statute would only have canceled a license at the time of renewal. Landlords will have to pay $250 a day for every illegal alien they are accommodating.

"This law is tougher in many ways," said Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta who led the campaign for the ordinance. He says the quality of life in the town of 31,000 has fallen because of an influx of illegal immigrants, mostly from Central America.

The new law is designed mainly to withstand legal challenges that Barletta said could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, have already filed suit against Hazleton.


http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....C1-ArticlePage2 (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-09-09T001828Z_01_N08115226_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-IMMIGRATION-TOWN.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2)

[Iseult_]

I think open borders is a disaster for the left. It only serves to enrich the capitalists. I support tough border controls.

[RevSouth]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 08:04 PM
I think open borders is a disaster for the left. It only serves to enrich the capitalists. I support tough border controls.
It also hurts the immigrants, which is not good. So what if it helps with the cappie corporations a little bit? People's lives are getting better, money is sent back to home countries, people are getting better educations, and are more likely to support our position with these better educations.

[PRC-UTE]

The SwP has been very active in this, I was just reading about it today.


I think open borders is a disaster for the left. It only serves to enrich the capitalists. I support tough border controls.

You didn't really explain how it's a disaster for the left, but anyway. Most leftists believe in (or should at least) the rights of people to emigrate adn improve their lives and stand side by side with them when they come under attack fromthe far right.

Hazelton officials put off enforcing anti-immigration law (http://www.themilitant.com/2006/7035/703502.html)


A group of 15 Minutemen, with signs that declared, “Unions embracing illegals are selling out their members,” organized a counterprotest on a hill near the stage. Miguel López, chief marshal of the Labor Day event and port division representative for the Teamsters in Southern California, organized a squad of union marshals that surrounded the rightists and began pushing them further up the hill. From that position, the union members and their supporters, chanting “Sí se puede,” escorted them out of the park.

Mario Escobar, a young worker who was part of the escort, said he had been “walking across the grass and someone shouted ‘wetback’ at me. I turned around and there were all these white people with American flags. I am proud of how we turned them back. Immigrant or not, this is a workers’ struggle.”


:lol: :)

LINK (http://www.themilitant.com/2006/7035/index.shtml)

[Iseult_]

Why would a leftist support any action that benefits the business class ?

First we must break the back of Corporate America, we can worry about "making peoples lives better" later.

As a leftist, I firmly oppose open borders and the exploitation of the workers.

[metalero]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 09:54 PM
Why would a leftist support any action that benefits the business class ?

First we must break the back of Corporate America, we can worry about "making peoples lives better" later.

As a leftist, I firmly oppose open borders and the exploitation of the workers.
"open borders" is a tricky name to misinform about the struggle against ultra-exploitation of illegal inmigrants who flee their countries whose economies are deeply devastated by neo-colonial economical policies framed in washington. These inmigrants are a huge part of the working-class, and a true "leftist" would rely on internationalism and historical material analysis of society to understand the struggle for human dignity recognition, not some petty and clueless reasoning.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 02:54 AM
Why would a leftist support any action that benefits the business class ?

First we must break the back of Corporate America, we can worry about "making peoples lives better" later.

As a leftist, I firmly oppose open borders and the exploitation of the workers.
So you support the 'Minutemen' reactionaries then?

Well I've been forced to relocate myself before. I wont' bother being offended cos it sounds like you're talking in pure abstraction - a sure sign that you know fuck all about workers' lives.

[BreadBros]

Why would a leftist support any action that benefits the business class ?

First we must break the back of Corporate America, we can worry about "making peoples lives better" later.

As a leftist, I firmly oppose open borders and the exploitation of the workers.

This is an interesting discussion and I think it relates to the Globalization of Labor thread I brought up in Theory. Ultimately the reason why a leftist would support the business class would be for the same reason one would support a bourgeois revolution in a previously imperially-dominated or economically undeveloped country. Revolution can't happen in abstract space, it has to have its basis in material conditions and Marx seems to have laid out that the spread of capitalist production or globalization is an integral part of the material conditions that will give rise to such a revolution. Read my other thread for more thoughts, but primarily because of the role capitalism plays in subverting national and ethnic differences.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 02:54 AM
Why would a leftist support any action that benefits the business class ?

First we must break the back of Corporate America, we can worry about "making peoples lives better" later.

As a leftist, I firmly oppose open borders and the exploitation of the workers.
the goal of communism is to improve peoples' lives

it must always be the number one goal, if it should cease to be - I would cease to be a leftist

[Iseult_]

I see Corporate America as the main problem. I believe, as leftists, our first priority should be to deprive them of the cheap labor that they exploit for corporate gain. For a global socialist revolution to occur, we have to cut off the head of the snake first. First Corporate America falls, then their international client states begin to tumble down like dominoes.

It's up to the Mexican workers IN Mexico to do their part to topple their own corrupt government.

[bcbm]

I think open borders is a disaster for the left. It only serves to enrich the capitalists. I support tough border controls.

It only serves to enrich the capitalists if we allow them to continue trampling on the rights of our immigrant comrades. We should be supporting them in struggles for safe conditions, good hours and fair pay, as we would support any of our comrades at home. Drawing a seperation between "foreign" and "native" workers serves the interests of the ruling class and we must make it clear that they are the enemy.


I see Corporate America as the main problem. I believe, as leftists, our first priority should be to deprive them of the cheap labor that they exploit for corporate gain.

They will always seek out the cheapest labor possible. The solution is not border controls, it is WORKERS' STRUGGLE.

[Iseult_]

I don't think your looking at the big picture. The goal isn't to grovel in front of Corporate America for "better pay" - I see the goal as OVERTHROWING the entire free enterprise system altogether!

Allowing corporate interests to exploit our comrades in the developing world will only strengthen their hand. I say the borders MUST be sealed if a socialist revolution is going to happen.

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 12:30 PM
I don't think your looking at the big picture. The goal isn't to grovel in front of Corporate America for "better pay" - I see the goal as OVERTHROWING the entire free enterprise system altogether!
And somehow we will further the overthrow of capitalism by the proletariat by dividing the proletariat along national lines and caving into the racist right? :wacko:



Allowing corporate interests to exploit our comrades in the developing world will only strengthen their hand.

Which is why we don't let them be exploited: we organize and fight back. That's what I was saying.


I say the borders MUST be sealed if a socialist revolution is going to happen.

Nonsense. The borders have been open for over 150 years and immigrants have always been a major force in social change and will no doubt continue to be. Let's unite with our exploited comrades, not try to evict them. That's absurd.

[Iseult_]

"the racist right" ?

The way I see it, the ones being "racist" are the ones exploiting the workers of the third world. Those are the SAME ones who want open borders. As leftists, I feel we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to put an end to the greedy profiteering of the business class. Putting a stranglhold on their supply of cheap labor is a good first step.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 06:41 PM
"the racist right" ?

The way I see it, the ones being "racist" are the ones exploiting the workers of the third world. Those are the SAME ones who want open borders. As leftists, I feel we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to put an end to the greedy profiteering of the business class. Putting a stranglhold on their supply of cheap labor is a good first step.
do you support the Minutemen?

They're putting into practice what you're preachin.

[Iseult_]

Who are "the minutemen" ?

[BreadBros]

[CODE]I don't think your looking at the big picture. The goal isn't to grovel in front of Corporate America for "better pay" - I see the goal as OVERTHROWING the entire free enterprise system altogether!

Allowing corporate interests to exploit our comrades in the developing world will only strengthen their hand. I say the borders MUST be sealed if a socialist revolution is going to happen.

I suggest you go back and read even the "Communist Manifesto" by Marx. You will see his ultimate point that revolution is not some abstract idea that someone came up with and that we can just enact whenever we want, it is the ultimate product of historical and economic developments, it is always connected to material reality. In this regard Marx said that one of the main ways capitalism would be transcended is it would create its OWN internal contradictions, among which he talked about its global spread and its subversion of national identity. Its not really a matter of much discussion, its in capitalism's interest to increasingly destroy borders and thats what seems to be happening, ultimately its serving the goal of moving the world out of nation-based conflicts and into class consciousness.

[midnight marauder]

I think open borders is a disaster for the left. It only serves to enrich the capitalists. I support tough border controls.

Are you serious? As if the "capitalist class" isn't already rich? As if denying immigrant workers somehow "weakens" "capitalists"?

Here's the deal: the reason why the upper classes and the petty bourgeois are in general opposed to immigrant rights is because it increases their costs. When immigrants have the rights we're pushing for, that means companies can no longer pay them below minimum wage, deport them for challeging or whistleblowing, [insert one of the other thousands of ways immigrants are exploited here]. By denying them the rights of natural citizens, you not only "help the capitalist class", as you say, but you are doing an extreme detriment to proletarians from all of the world.


First we must break the back of Corporate America, we can worry about "making peoples lives better" later.

What does this even mean? Are you suggesting we just ignore capitalism? Without popular support, how exactly do you propose we go about such a plan? And if we have popular support, would we not just take the means of production by force?

Until we have mass support, it's essential to provide the people of the global community with basic human rights. We don't do this by ignoring their exploitation.


As a leftist, I firmly oppose open borders and the exploitation of the workers.

I think you might be confused. Sure you weren't looking for conservativeforum.org?

[Iseult_]

So, what your saying then is that you support the Bush position on immigration?

No thanx.

I'll do everything in my power to prevent the business class from their grotesque profiteering and that includes resisting any measure that provides them with cheap foreign labor to exploit.

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 03:58 PM
I'll do everything in my power to prevent the business class from their grotesque profiteering and that includes resisting any measure that provides them with cheap foreign labor to exploit.
The only way to resist this is through proletarian struggle, not laws passed and enforced by bourgeois politicians.

[midnight marauder]

I'll do everything in my power to prevent the business class from their grotesque profiteering and that includes resisting any measure that provides them with cheap foreign labor to exploit.

The immigrant rights movement is the opposition to measures that provide businesses with cheap foreign labor to exploit.

[Iseult_]

But without proper documentation big business can easily exploit them.

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 08:10 PM
But without proper documentation big business can easily exploit them.
So fight big business, not the people it exploits. :rolleyes:

[Iseult_]

I am fighting big business!

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

But without proper documentation big business can easily exploit them.

Why not just give everyone "proper documention"?


I am fighting big business!

You're also fighting against basic rights for workers (because they happen to be born on the wrong side of an imaginary line).

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 08:54 PM
I am fighting big business!
No you're not. You're supporting nationalist and racist measures to ensure "national sovereignty," which does nothing in and of itself to harm the bosses but does a great deal of harm to immigrants.

[AmazingDetail]

I see Corporate America as the main problem. I believe, as leftists, our first priority should be to deprive them of the cheap labor that they exploit for corporate gain.

what would immigration have to do with this? if companies stay in the US they do this because they need the infrastructure, supplier industries and so on, that only so-called first-world-countries can provide. what they want is green-card-immigration of highly skilled people. if any commodity´s production is not dependent on the above it will be done in another part of the world where it´s cheaper altogether anyway.
no company is staying in the US because of "cheap labour".



For a global socialist revolution to occur, we have to cut off the head of the snake first. First Corporate America falls, then their international client states begin to tumble down like dominoes.

there is no "head of the snake". what has to be fought is the capitalist system, not its character masks who are subject to its logic just as much as you and i am. or to put it in a slogan: don´t fight the player, fight the game.

my impression is that you´re not really aware of how economy works. you should read up on it.

[Iseult_]

To the contrary! I'm fighting FOR the rights of workers.

And the good people of Mexico do not live on the "wrong" side of the line. These people have pride and they deserve to have their dignity respected.

[Iseult_]

So if I understand this correctly, all of you arguing for open borders are in agreement with George Bush on this issue?

[KC]

So if I understand this correctly, all of you arguing for open borders are in agreement with George Bush on this issue?

Not at all. Our position is completely open borders.

[amanondeathrow]

And the good people of Mexico do not live on the "wrong" side of the line. These people have pride and they deserve to have their dignity respected.

I'm sure immagrents feel dinfied when a border guard sticks a gun in their face and ships them back to poverty.

We should probably start protecting the dignity of American workers too, by not alowing them to work so they are not exploited. Whether or not they slip into poverty is not our concern since sociaism is not about making life better ;) .

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2006, 08:13 AM
To the contrary! I'm fighting FOR the rights of workers.
How is supporting the rhetoric of racists and nationalists and their allies in the government who are decidedly anti-worker supporting the rights of workers? The only thing that has ever gained the workers anything is class struggle and that neccessarily means class solidarity, across national lines. We're internationalists.



And the good people of Mexico do not live on the "wrong" side of the line. These people have pride and they deserve to have their dignity respected.

Indeed, and we should extend solidarity and support to their struggles within Mexico as well. That doesn't mean deporting comrades, though.


So if I understand this correctly, all of you arguing for open borders are in agreement with George Bush on this issue?

No. We argue for completely open borders, a destruction of neo-liberal "free trade" that is destroying Latin America and forcing people to move and for workers' struggle against the bosses and against capitalism.

[Tekun]

Legal employees can now sue their employers for any work lost as a result of a business license being revoked because a company was found to have hired illegal immigrants.

Creating division among the proletariat...classic bourgeois tactic, which serves to keep racists and capitalists in power
Fighting eachother instead of fighting those who buy and exploit their labor
Im amazed everytime I see working class Americans out there blaming immigrant workers for lowering their wages :angry:

[Severian]

The latest article from the Militant on Hazleton (http://www.themilitant.com/2006/7036/703604.html)

It describes some of the same events as the Reuters article at the beginning of the thread. But with additional detail.

It's important to note that the resistance to this ordinance has already had some effect; they had to rewrite it before adopting it. The fight isn't over, either.

[BreadBros]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2006, 02:48 PM
So if I understand this correctly, all of you arguing for open borders are in agreement with George Bush on this issue?
Possibly. If the worldwide economy were to be reformed to prevent the plundering of nations by international bankers, to make imperialist wars more difficult to execute, backlash against neo-liberalism, then the production of the nation-state and the individual development of economies might be the best route for human liberation. As it is, nothing like that is happening. Destroying borders and globalizing labor markets would do a lot to subvert the nation-state and ethnic differences and further the division of the world into two competing economic classes as Marx predicted. I'm not sure if Bush's position is the same, but if it is, then yes, although with drastically different aims.