This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

REAL ID Act passage imminent

Opportunism of the enemy camp a death blow to the real proletariat inside U.$. borders

By HC116, May 2, 2005

The u.$. Senate is still considering a bill that would, among other things, prohibit undocumented persyns from receiving driver's licenses on pain of withholding federal funds from incompliant states.(1) The REAL ID Act also makes it easier to build fences on u.$. borders, particularly the Kalifornia-Baja border, by allowing that "the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section."(2) In addition, The REAL ID Act would prohibit courts and others from ordering "compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision."(2)

H.R.418's cosponsors from the House include Tom Tancredo, John T. Doolittle, Lamar Smith, Scott Garrett, J. D. Hayworth (AZ-5), Phil Gingrey, Virgil Goode, and Walter Jones--all of whom are Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus members and all of whom recently spoke approvingly of the fascist Minuteman Project .(3)(4) They joined J. Gresham Barrett and Tom Price in lavishing praise on the Minuteman Project in Washington, D.C. H.R.418 consponsors also include some Demokrats, Collin Peterson and Lincoln Davis.

Appealing to the labor aristocracy, J. Gresham Barrett said: "I hope the Minutemen Project has raised awareness around the country for the need to reform our seriously flawed immigration system. Illegal immigration adversely impacts our job market, our education system and health care costs. Hard working American taxpayers are being forced to shoulder that burden placed on society. There is a right way to enter our country and a wrong way."(4) Unlike most of the "left" and the so-called labor movement in the united $tates, MIM is not white nationalists. Whether undocumented migrants make Amerikans or the Amerikan worker wealthier or not is not a factor in MIM's opposing the repression of undocumented migrant proletarians. There must be reparations to oppressed nations anyway. However, J. Gresham Barrett ignores recent figures showing that undocumented migrant workers put more into the Social Security system than they will take out, up to $7 billion a year--a big chunk of the Social Security surplus every year.(5)

The Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus members are not alone in supporting the Minuteman Project. An Opinion Dynamics / Fox News telephone poll (April 25-26) of registered voters--country-wide, not just in Arizona --shows that 44% of Amerikans believed that the Minutemen were "concerned citizens doing what the government is not doing." Only 34% said the Minuteman Project "are best described as vigilantes who should leave patrolling to professional law enforcement."(6) On top of that, 63% of all respondents agreed that "[i]f a government does not control its country's borders, then the government will eventually lose control of the country."(6) It is this reactionary chauvinist fear that propels fascist activism and action against undocumented and other migrants. Dozens of undocumented migrants dead each year from heatstroke and other hazards in the desert--and many more deaths and shorter lifespans because of the border in general, and violence against migrants and policing of migrants documented and undocumented--aren't enough for these reactionary parasites.

The heightening repression of undocumented migrants has to a great extent been a bottom-up movement of the reactionary exploiter Euro-Amerikan labor aristocracy working with the imperialists. The opportunists who see fascism as emanating from only the Bu$h government have seriously miscalculated. Within the united $tates, it is the oppressed-nation workers who will suffer the consequences of the opportunist "mistake."

The u.$. white labor aristocracy and the imperialists are united against the proletariat in the united $tates--undocumented workers, prisoners, homeless persyns, and others. If the Senate passes the REAL ID Act, attached to a supplementary spending bill for war and other purposes, Bu$h will probably sign it.(7)(8)

Senate Minority Leader (Demokrat) Harry Reid "said Democrats have decided they would not hold up passage of the Iraq war spending bill solely because it includes the Real ID Act."(7) The opportunists who have targeted only Bu$h and a handful of other RepubliKKKans for criticism have contributed to this situation by going easy on the labor aristocracy and the imperialists outside the Bu$h clique. Many Demokrats and Republikans oppose the REAL ID Act for pragmatic imperialist reasons.(9) However, they realize that their constituencies don't care about the fine points anyway and will vote for the REAL ID Act to please the labor aristocracy and other smaller exploiters. For example, a March 4, 2005, Field Institute telephone poll of Kalifornians (field date: February 8-17, 2005) shows that 60% of "white non-Hispanic" respondents opposed "allowing undocumented workers who do not have legal status, to obtain a driver's license in California." Another 15% "oppose[d] somewhat." Only 28% combined responded favor somewhat or favor strongly. A March 22, 2005, CNN / USA Today / Gallup country-wide telephone poll suggests that the current move to restrict driver's licenses from undocumented persyns is also bound up with a hostility toward youth. 8% of Amerikans responded that the legal driving (driver's license) age should be 21 or older. 3% said 19-20 years old. 42% said 18 years. 8% said 17.


Notes:

1. "Senate Still Debating REAL ID Act," May 2, 2005, http://www.hardbeatnews.com/editor/RTE/my_documents/my_files/ details.asp?newsid=3767

2 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:3:./temp/~c109JBALaJ:e11226:

3. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR00418:@@@P

4. "Comments from CIRC Members on Minutemen," April 27, 2005, http://tancredo.house.gov/pressers/04.27.05%20CIRC%20MM%20Presser.htm

5. "Eduardo Porter, Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions," April 5, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/ 05immigration.html?ex=1270353600&en=78c87ac4641dc383&ei=5090& partner=rssuserland

6. "Americans Divided On Arizona's 'Minutemen' ," May 2, 2005, http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=7026

7. Sergio Bustos and Doug Abrahms, "Democrats won't stop drivers license verification bill, Reid says," April 25, 2005, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-25-real-id-act_x.htm

8. Stephen Dinan, "White House 'strongly' supports Real I.D.," April 27, 2005, http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050427-120138-8386r.htm

9. For example:

Margaret Stock, "The 'REAL ID' Act: A Real Nightmare For Department Of Defense," http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/articles/2005,0502-stock.shtm

The Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, openly panders to chauvinism while opposing the REAL ID Act on pragmatic grounds.

"What's At Stake! : Stop the Anti-Immigrant REAL ID Act," http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/realidsenate/explanation

"REAL ID would impose new unfunded federal mandates on state motor vehicle agencies to enforce federal immigration laws. The REAL ID Act does nothing to protect us – in fact, it undermines the guidelines for reform recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Instead, REAL ID prescribes a series of unworkable, rigid, unfunded federal mandates that could delay or disrupt new driver’s license security measures adopted by the states as a result of the 9/11 Commission. . . . We need Congress to focus on real reform, not band aid fixes that do nothing to advance our goals to have an immigration system that is safe, orderly and legal."

10. "Praise for Minutemen Riles Hispanics," May 2, 2005, http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/ newsbyid.asp?id=22705&cat=Headlines&more=/news/more-news.asp