Voice of Revolution

Bush Border "Security"

No to Annexation! No to Police State Measures to Divide the Peoples

President George W. Bush, using border "security" and immigration as his justification, is imposing measures aimed at annexing Mexico and pitting the workers against each other. The use of 6,000 National Guard troops at the border creates the conditions for these troops to take action inside Mexico. Whether in the name of pursuing "human smugglers," or "pre-empting" immigrants from crossing the border, it is very likely that the troops will mainly be used, as Bush put it, for "security both sides of the border." Given the history of the U.S. using troops first for "training" and "surveillance," and then in combat, as is taking place in Colombia and took place in Nicaragua, the peoples here and in Mexico are very right to call the measure one of militarization and annexation.

The Bush plan does nothing to solve the problems of mass migration from countries impoverished by U.S. imperialism. It does nothing to assist the peoples of Mexico, Central and South America and contribute to raising their standards of living, something readily possible given the massive wealth produced by workers in the U.S. Canceling the debt of these countries, paying reparations for U.S. wars, interference and robbery of their land and resources, these are actions that would assist and contribute to fraternal relations.

Increasing use of force and lining the border with more troops and firepower serves annexation and repression. Voice of Revolution vigorously denounces any use of U.S. troops in Mexico. The millions in action on May Day made clear that the workers will not accept these divide and conquer measures by the U.S. rulers. We say, No to Annexation, Yes to Sovereignty!

The latest Bush plan is also designed to finalize arrangements for a police state. The plan includes special identification cards, with biometric identifiers, issued by the federal government and required for "work eligibility." While the ID is aimed at immigrants to start with, there is every indication that it will be required of all workers in the name of "employer verification of legal status." It is also the case that the cards are being tied to Bush's "guest worker" program, forcing individual immigrants to secure a contract with an employer. Again, this is a measure that can readily be extended and required of all workers, as a condition for work. It also serves to give employers a much freer hand in imposing lower wages, slave-like conditions and elimination of unions and collective contracts.

Another police state measure is use of local and state police agencies to enforce federal immigration law. This serves to put these forces under federal control, in this case Homeland Security and its Border Patrol, while also engaging them in activity beyond their legal authority as local or state police agencies. Already, in Arizona, as well as New York City, where local police have been involved in such enforcement, there is widespread impunity by the police, including racial profiling and terrorizing of people on the streets, demanding they show proof of citizenship. This terrorizing in turn is being used to force people to accept the notion that police can stop, brutalize and detain anyone, without cause, in the name of verifying their "legal status."

Conditions are being created so that everyone will be required to have the federal ID, in order to work, to qualify for Medicare or welfare, to vote, and so forth. The ID will only be issued according to government dictate. When one adds Bush's claim that everyone must submit to "American values" as dictated by the government, it can be seen that these measures will be used to broadly repress the people, justify mass round ups and detention, and outrightly banish people from society.

Voice of Revolution calls on all to be vigilante against all these measures and all efforts to split and divide the people, inside the country and from our sisters and brothers in Mexico, Canada and around the world. Let the May Day actions stand as our model: No One is Illegal! Defend the Rights of All!

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For Your Information

Bush Proposal on Immigration

President George W. Bush presented proposals concerning border "security" and immigration in a televised speech May 15. Notable in the speech was the plan to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border with Mexico and the stepped up use of "state and local authorities assisting the Border Patrol on targeted enforcement missions."

Bush also elaborated the plan for a biometric identification card for workers, using digital fingerprints. The card would serve to verify "work eligibility." Bush is calling for "every legal foreign worker," to have one. However, given that employers will be doing the verifying, it is likely that the cards will be required, as Bush indicates, for "work eligibility" for all workers. His speech on immigration April 24 put it this way, "You got to have the card to get work."

The speech again put forward a "guest worker program," that would force many immigrant workers into indentured servitude, much like the Irish and Italian immigrants before them. The government would act as a "hiring hall" for the monopolies. Immigrants would be forced to sign individual contracts with employers for a set period of time, would only be allowed into the country if the employer says so and deported if the employer fires them or lays them off. When the set time period is completed, they would be deported. The plan is much like the old WWII bracero program, notorious for imposing slave-like conditions of work and deporting workers without paying them, or based on their resistance. It should also be noted that if, over time, all workers are required to have the identification card, it is quite possible that all workers would also be subject to signing individual contracts with employers for set periods of time in order to work.

Bush also repeated that being a citizen means submitting to what the government decides are "American values." These requirements are listed on the White House webpage on immigration as acceptance of "liberty and civic responsibility, equality under God, tolerance for others, and the English language." In his speech Bush stated it in a similar manner, saying anyone who wants to be a citizen must recognize that "Americans are bound by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly and an ability to speak and write the English language." He concluded the speech by giving an example of who qualifies for citizenship - an immigrant from Mexico who joined the Army and was wounded in Iraq.

Arrangements of Annexation and Police State

Bush's emphasis on "a system that is secure, orderly and fair," together with the specific proposals, shows that the main significance of the May 15 speech is the effort by the Office of the President to more fully put in place arrangements of annexation externally and a police state internally. This is evident in the proposal to place 6,000 National Guard troops along the border with Mexico, the increased use of local and state police agencies in federal law enforcement, the ID requirements for "work eligibility," and imposing the concept that only those who agree with the government can be citizens. Or, as Bush put it in his April 24 speech, "I believe that a person should never be granted automatic citizenship." While the context in which he was speaking was for existing immigrants, the statement is consistent with the general direction of government to strip people of their rights, as can be seen with Katrina survivors, with those forced to show proof of citizenship to receive health benefits, and so forth.

Bush's speech followed massive demonstrations of millions of workers, in the U.S., Mexico and Canada as well as worldwide, marching for rights on May Day. Millions also demonstrated in the U.S. in March and April. It also comes on the heels of the summit between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, where "law and order" and a single border perimeter, embracing all three countries and controlled by the U.S. and its military, were discussed.

The proposals serve the government's need to pit workers against each other, in the U.S. and North America as a whole, and to secure a single border perimeter. The documents from the summit, for example, speak to "a single integrated North American trusted traveler program and swift law enforcement responses to threats posed by criminals or terrorists." In his speech Bush added, "We will continue to work cooperatively to improve security on both sides of the border, to confront common problems like drug trafficking and crime, and to reduce illegal immigration."

A main aim then of troops on the border, as distinct from Border Patrol and local law enforcement, is to have a force that can "work cooperatively to improve security on both sides of the border." Migrants trying to come into the country to work will be used as an excuse for U.S. troops to go into Mexico, either in "hot pursuit," or as a "pre-emptive" measure. One can readily imagine the troops being used to go after vehicles branded as those of "human smugglers," and to do so "on both sides of the border."

The positioning of the Guard on the border then has far more to do with U.S. efforts to increase its presence inside Mexico as part of annexationist efforts, than it does with immigration. This is further evidenced by the known failure of similar measures for border "security," already implemented in Arizona.

Consistent with striving to secure arrangements for U.S. military control in Mexico are the arrangements inside the country to unify U.S. military and police agencies. One of the difficulties facing any police state is centralized federal control of the military and policing agencies. This is particularly difficult in the U.S., where there are so many different agencies at various levels, all of them armed to the teeth and highly "turf" conscious.

The governor of each state controls the National Guard and the president must request that they be federalized. In calling for National Guard troops, Bush is forcing the governors of the southern border states (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas) to agree to have their troops federalized and controlled by the president. Once this action is taken, the governors will have little ability to reverse the decision, as can already be seen with Bush forcing Guard deployment to Iraq. Thus the Office of the President is acting to have control of the National Guard for internal and external use, particularly for the border states, and absent any national emergency or "civil unrest."

Additionally, the call for "state and local authorities assisting the Border Patrol on targeted enforcement missions," is a mechanism to assert federal control over state and local authorities. At present, state and local authorities are not permitted to enforce federal immigration laws and there has been broad resistance to such a role by local governments and police forces (see L.A. City Council for example). It is recognized that such enforcement would require racial profiling and force officials who are neither equipped nor trained to verify a person's immigration status. One main result of local enforcement is increased racist harassment and brutality against immigrants, with and without documents, in the name of "border security." It also creates a situation where everyone will need to carry the special identification at all times and accept being stopped, harassed and detained for no reason.

These measures will do nothing to solve the problems of immigration and poverty, a main source for immigration. Taken together, including the requirement that everyone submit to the government's "values" of racism, war and aggression, these are measures for finalizing police state arrangements.

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Chicago, Illinois

Mothers Organize Hunger Strike to Oppose Raids and Deportations

As part of ongoing actions to defend immigrant rights and oppose government attacks on all workers, two women in Chicago organized hunger strikes. They specifically opposed the broad government raids against immigrants that took place in April, following the massive actions across the country April 11,demanding rights. The broad raids that took place following the demonstrations were a clear message to all those planning to participate in May Day actions to stay home and remain silent. The millions who proudly and militantly took to the streets on May Day made clear that the government failed completely in these efforts to intimidate the workers.

Two women, Elvira Arellano, President of La Familia Latina Unida (Latin Families United) and Flor Crisostomo, an IFCO systems worker arrested and scheduled for deportation during nationwide raids on April 19, organized their hunger strike to protest the government attacks. The women, both mothers, demanded that President George W. Bush call a moratorium on "raids, deportations and separations of families" and that "the Senate and Congress come to a resolution of this nation's broken immigration laws." Two other people, a 20-year-old college student, teacher and Aztec dancer along with a 27-year-old resident also joined the hunger strike. They joined in demanding, "Stop the deportations of families, profiling and raids. Legalization now!"

During the hunger strike, members of the community joined in each night for a protest and vigil at the Plaza Tenochtitlan. Activists also traveled to Washington, DC the week of May 15, to organize protests at the White House.

La Familia Latina Unida, Centro Sin Fronteras and Chicago IFCO 26. Contact: English: call Roberto López 773- 671-1727 Spanish: call Elvira Arellano 773-577-6388

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No Deal! No Compromise! No Hagel-Martinez!

- National Immigrant Solidarity Network -

The National Immigrant Solidarity network urged fellow workers and all concerned to stand against the current Senate bills being promoted as they are unjust compromises that go against the interests of all workers. Below we reprint a letter sent to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Senator Mel Martinez, drafter of one of the compromise bills. All concerned are urged to fax or email their senators and to join in planned actions for Memorial Day.

* * *

May 11, 2006
Senator Reid, Senator Mel Martinez
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senators Reid and Martinez

It is the position of the __________ in conjunction with many other immigrant, faith, social justice, labor, peace, human and civil rights organizations, as well as other concerned communities that support the human and civil rights of immigrants, to oppose the so-called immigration reform proposals that are presently being negotiated in the U.S. Senate.

Specifically, we adamantly oppose H.R. 4437, as well as all of the compromise bills such as the Hagel-Martinez and other compromise proposals presented in the Senate.

In a re-ignited civil rights movement, millions of immigrants, their families, neighbors and co-workers, along with faith and labor leaders, peace and justice advocates, have marched and rallied in cities across the U.S. Nearly one million marched on March 25 in Los Angeles. Well more than two million marched on May 1. For that one day, along with tens of millions of other souls in the U.S. and beyond, we observed the the Great American Boycott 2006 during which millions of dollars were lost and millions more unspent, in a symbolic act of dignity, peace, and hope. This action was also in solidarity and celebration for the contributions that the many undocumented workers living on the fringe in the U.S. make to the economy. Moreover, the mobilizations have served as a wake up call for the whole country to acknowledge the vital role of immigrants as co-workers, neighbors and vital, viable members of our broad society.

In this spirit, we call upon members of Congress and the administration to stop masquerading the current proposals as immigration reform. We demand nothing less than immigration policies that are fair and just, that respect the rights and dignity of all immigrants and other members of our society.

As details of the current legislative compromise become known, the voices of immigrant communities are becoming louder to reject the proposals for a so-called legalization program. We are denouncing the further erosion of human and civil rights through the enforcement and criminalization provisions.

The stakes are considerably high now, and the debate affects us all, therefore we cannot allow the current proposals to be enacted as this generation's flawed immigration reform legacy. What some are calling a "path to citizenship" in the last Senate bill is merely a massive temporary worker program without worker protections. The proposed 3-tiered temporary worker program offers little hope for broad inclusive legalization of undocumented immigrants, and these proposals would further erode already weak labor protections and rights for immigrants and other workers.

The rush to reach a bipartisan accord on immigration legislation has led to a compromise that would create deep divisions within the immigrant community and leave millions of undocumented immigrants in the shadows of our country. It is clear that these tradeoff deals are based on election year campaigning and demands by business lobbyists, rather than on the best interests and voices of immigrant communities.

We pledge to increase public education efforts and the building and mobilization of meaningful alliances, and we will encourage and support immigrant community leadership to advance real immigration reform. We call upon Congress and the administration to heed the voices of immigrant communities demanding genuine immigration reforms: real legalization, equitable inclusion in our society, justice, and respect for humankind.

In unity,

We say, No deal! No compromise! We encourage the Senate to join us in saying, No deal! No compromise!

Send a fax or email this letter directly to Senator Reid and Martinez today! Senator Reid: www.reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm or fax to: 202-224-7327 Senator Mel Martinez www.martinez.senate.gov or call 202-224-3041; Senate switchboard for other senators: 202-224-3121

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Urgent Action Alert

Join the Battle Against Anti-Immigrant Legislation

- National Immigrant Solidarity Network -

On Monday, May 15, President Bush will deliver a prime-time televised address announcing the deployment of National Guard troops to the U.S-Mexico border. Also at some point in the next two weeks, U.S. Senate leaders are expected to approve parts of the so-called compromise immigrant legislation (such as the Hagel-Martinez Bill).

This is a critical moment for the immigrant struggle. Despite millions of people across the country on May 1 marching in the streets for immigrant rights, the right wing anti-immigrant forces in Congress and President Bush want to "talk tough on immigration."

We should brace ourselves for the ultimate showdown of the immigrant struggle soon, and we should mobilize ourselves quickly to respond to the racist anti-immigrant xenophobia that will go down.

We suggest organizing the following actions:

1) A local press conference, rally or vigil to denounce the racist anti--immigrant proposals from Congress and the president.
2) Legislative actions, including calling, writing and faxing your elected officials.
3) An emergency community meeting to strategize rapid response to a possible nationwide crackdown or attack on immigrants.
4) We are calling for multi-ethnic, broad-based national mobilization on Memorial Day weekend (5/27-29).Organize creative local actions against the possible passage of any anti-immigrant legislation and further government-sponsored immigrant crackdowns.

We urge you to support the Nine Points for Immigrant Rights, proposed by the Los Angeles March 25th Coalition:

. No to the anti-immigrant HR4437 and any other "copycat" legislation from Congress
. No to militarization of the border
. No to criminalization of immigrant communities
. No to the planned immigrant crackdown across the country
. No to the guest worker program
. Yes to amnesty for undocumented immigrants
. Yes to immigrant family reunification
. Yes to a humane path to citizenship
. Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers

On May 1, we showed the world that our force, our strength and our voice cannot be silenced from this moment on. This is the birth of a new civil rights movement for the 21st century, and we will fight for our demands until we prevail.

United We'll Win! Together We'll Achieve Our Dreams!

http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org http://www.NoHR4437.org

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Immigrants Rising!

- School of the Americas Watch -

Over the past couple months, grassroots initiatives against anti-immigrant legislation received a tremendous response. Tens of thousands of high school students across California walked out of school. Federal offices and freeways were taken over and shut down. Workers in Chicago, Atlanta and other cities engaged in work stoppage. Massive rallies took place in at least 100 cities across the country, with over three million people flooding into the streets.

"The demonstrations embody a surging constituency demanding that illegal immigrants be given a path to citizenship rather than be punished with prison terms," the New York Times, belatedly, observed. "[Their demands are] being pressed as never before by immigrants who were long thought too fearful of deportation to risk so public a display."

School of the Americas (SOA) Watch supports the struggle for immigrant rights. We understand that many immigrants to the United States are victims of U.S.-sponsored military training and atrocities in Latin America. In our fight to close the SOA, we continue to work towards a world that is free of suffering and violence. We recognize the SOA as being a part of the same racist system of violence and domination. We ally ourselves with those most affected by SOA violence and their families in our effort to create a better world.

Many immigrants that come to the United States from Latin America are victims of SOA graduates who carry out violence against civilian populations in their own countries. Right now in Colombia, paramilitary groups are terrorizing villages, which causes displacement and migration. But this is hardly a new phenomenon. In the 1980s, during the civil wars in Central America, military and paramilitary groups uprooted people from their homes, and many fled to the United States.

We urge all people to become more educated about the life stories and experiences of recent immigrants and to support human and civil rights!

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Asian Americans Stand for Rights

AALDEF Statement on U.S. Immigration Reform Policy

- Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) -

As the Senate considers immigration reform in the coming weeks, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), a 32-year-old national civil rights organization, calls upon Congress to uphold basic human rights principles in its legislative proposals and to reject any effort to criminalize immigrants based solely on their immigration status.

Since September 11, our government has assumed unprecedented power in the name of national security while undermining the fundamental human rights of individuals. Despite the failure of post 9-11 dragnets, such as the special registration program and mass detention of immigrants, our policymakers have eagerly embraced the conflation of civil violations of immigration law with criminal laws. In its deliberations, Congress must neither strengthen nor extend ineffective and unrealistic provisions, including the modern-day bracero program promoted by the Bush Administration or H.R. 4437, the Sensenbrenner bill in the House.

Millions of undocumented immigrant workers have toiled in the most dangerous and least desirable jobs in our country, without the benefit of minimum wage, health and safety protections, or Social Security. In the twenty years since AALDEFopposed the adoption of "employer sanctions" under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, our communities have experienced drastic deterioration of workplace protections and the segregation of our workforce - one above ground, one underground - to the benefit of businesses that ignore workers rights and human rights. Calling human beings "illegal" because they fall outside the confines of laws fashioned from discriminatory policies is simply unacceptable. Furthermore, an enforcement-heavy approach to immigration reform will only undercut proposed adjustment of status programs for immigrant workers.

Unless U.S. immigration policies conform to basic human rights principles, the schisms in our society will only deepen to the detriment of all communities:

. Adjustment of Status: Immigration reform must recognize the human rights of undocumented immigrants already present in the U.S. and allow them to adjust their status and fully participate in the economy, with full workplace protections. Without such reform, millions will continue to work in sweatshop conditions and suffer indefinite isolation from loved ones abroad, under continual threat of detention or deportation because of their immigration status.

. Family Reunification: Any legislative proposal must ensure that our government clears existing backlogs and has sufficient funds to engage in the fair and orderly processing of applications. For many abroad, the insurmountable backlog of cases continues to keep families apart, while severe delays in processing prevent millions of individuals from establishing legal status. If enacted, legislative proposals such as H.R. 4437 would otherwise criminalize millions of women and children present in the U.S. without a court hearing, making it impossible for families to stay united.

. Enforce Worker Protections for All: Congressional repeal of the employer sanctions enacted in 1986 is central to meaningful immigration policy reform. The universal human right to make a living has been steadily undermined in the meantime. Undocumented immigrants find themselves with fewer legal protections as unscrupulous employers exploit them by paying substandard wages in often inhumane conditions. The federal government must strengthen and fully enforce labor law protections such as minimum wage and overtime for all workers, to reverse the current race to the bottom.

. End Discriminatory and Inhumane Immigration Practices: Racial, ethnic, and religious profiling, and the placement of any individual in detention for civil violations of immigration laws, are anathema to human rights and must end immediately. Tens of thousands of immigrants are detained indefinitely in jails across the country, many in secret or without access to lawyers, while systemic inhumane treatment of immigrants by federal agents has been documented by the government's own agencies. Congress must also reject any proposal to misuse state or local law enforcement employees for federal immigration enforcement. It is funding and resources for restoring full due process rights with judicial review - and not abusive treatment outside of public view - that will ensure that our immigration system is fair and just.

We urge Congress and the president to honor the language of the UN Declaration of Human Rights in any proposal for comprehensive immigration reform: a recognition of inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Only then will our nation embark on a path to reform befitting of our democracy and meaningful to all Americans.

April 3, 2006

AALDEF is a national organization that protects and promotes the civil rights of Asian Americans. Through litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing, AALDEF works with Asian American communities across the country to secure human rights for all.

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LA City Council to Minutemen: Go Home!

- Leslie Radford, February 3, 2006 -

The Los Angeles City Council issued an official and harsh rebuke to inland and border anti-migrant vigilantes.

The Council resolved to "include in the City's 2005-06 State and Federal Legislative Program, support of state or federal legislation denouncing and prohibiting the vigilante actions of individuals against immigrants along the border and within urban communities and enact immigration reform leading towards a path of permanent status for immigrants here now and wider legal channels for those coming in the future." [The resolution adds to the Council's stand against profiling and use of local police to enforce federal immigration laws. Special Order 40 prevents the police from questioning, detaining or interrogating persons solely because of suspected undocumented immigration status].

Although city officials may have been unaware of it, the resolution's passage is a city welcome to the March for Migrants, a cross-country caravan scheduled to arrive this evening at 6:00pm at Placita Olvera, after a 5:30pm march from the downtown Federal Building. The evening will mark the deaths of Guillermo Martinez Rodriguez, who was shot in the back last month with a hollow point bullet fired at less than twenty feet by a border patrol agent, and the thousands of others who have died crossing the border since the 1994 inception of Operation Gatekeeper. United Farm Workers co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus Dolores Huerta will lead a vigil at La Placita Church.

The caravan will stop in Fresno, San Francisco, and Sacramento to meet with state legislators. In Arizona, caravaners will memorialize border deaths in Tucson, El Paso, and San Antonio, with a special ceremony at the Alamo. Then they're on to Victoria where 19 migrants died in a semi, Houston, and the JFK Memorial in Dallas. Other scheduled stops include Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Atlanta with a special message for CNN's Lou Dobbs. After passing through North Carolina, the March for Migrants will end its journey in Washington, DC with a strong message of No to H.R. 4437! [the House bill criminalizing workers denied documents and those that support them] and to the recent wave of anti-migrant legislation, including meetings with Senators McCain and Kennedy, as well as other key legislators, including members of the Hispanic caucus.

In other business, the City Council heard from several citizens and citizen groups. La Placita Immigrants Working Group, CARECEN, and the Immigration Solidarity Network asked the Council to oppose H.R. 4437 and support a plan that leads to permanent residency and citizenship, and to reaffirm its support for Special Order 40, which prevents the police from questioning, detaining or interrogating persons solely because of suspected undocumented immigration status. In a stunning 10-day mobilization, over 10,000 signatures were collected on a petition supporting the position, according to CARECEN spokesperson Elda Martinez. The City Council received the petition.

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Los Angeles City Council Resolution

The resolution against anti-migrant vigilantes passed by the City Council reflected its endorsement of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee's full findings, as follows:

WHEREAS, any official position of the City of Los Angeles with respect to legislation, rules, regulations or policies proposed to or pending before a local, state or federal governmental body or agency must have first been adopted in the form of a Resolution by the City Council with the concurrence of the Mayor; and

WHEREAS, more than a quarter of California's residents were born abroad and more than half of California's low-wage working families are immigrant families; and

WHEREAS, 36 percent of Los Angeles' population immigrated from abroad; and

WHEREAS, we must value the dignity of all our immigrant residents, regardless of immigration status, and recognize the importance of their many contributions to the social, religious, cultural and economic life of the City; and

WHEREAS, we must recognize the strength derived from the cultural diversity of our immigrants and diverse communities in moving toward the end of discrimination in all its forms, and

WHEREAS, the media have reported the existence of; and planned existence of, groups of private individuals who wish to take the initiative to achieve greater enforcement of the immigration laws, to prevent the entry of undocumented workers coming to the United States, and to help with the removal of persons who may be identified by those groups; and

WHEREAS, it is feared that civilian patrol groups may no longer confine their activities to border areas, but have begun to enter major urban areas, where they have videotaped day laborers or stopped people to demand proof of citizenship; and

WHEREAS, border enforcement only works when our laws are realistic and enforceable, and currently our immigration laws are neither realistic nor enforceable as they divide families and prevent civic participation by all community members; and

WHEREAS, we should strongly reject civilian attempts to enforce immigration law; they threaten the public safety and civil rights of our residents and could only be conducive to a hostile environment, scapegoating and to aggressive behavior; and

WHEREAS, the City of Los Angeles has played a leading role in the protection of immigrant rights and has consistently promoted tolerance and respect for the rights, free speech and lives of all its residents, including immigrants and their families;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the mayor, that by the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby includes in its 2005-2006 State and Federal Legislative Program support for any legislation which 1. denounces the vigilante actions of private individuals or groups along the border and entering our urban communities to engage presumably in civilian patrol initiatives to assist the federal government in enforcing the immigration laws; 2. prohibits or otherwise hinders any vigilante type civilian action resulting in spying on others or sharing information with law enforcement officers and fosters the view that each and every person who is present within the city, county, and state, are presumptively here lawfully as citizen, legal resident, or visitor with appropriate documentation; and 3. enacts comprehensive immigration reform that combines a path to permanent status for immigrants here and wider legal channels for those coming in the future with humane and effective enforcement.

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Exploitation Without Borders

- Eisha Mason -

I am waiting to board the train in San Diego when I notice the Border Patrol agent making his way down our line. He stops by each person who looks "Latino" and asks them to present their legal documents. As the people standing next to me rummage for their identity papers, I stand by, angry, embarrassed and ashamed. In that moment, I don't know what to say or do to protest.

My mind suddenly travels back in time. I "remember" what it must have been like during slavery for Black people who made it to the North. If they had no papers, they were doomed to live each day in fear. If they were "legalized" by free papers, they still always needed these documents, no matter who they were or how old they were or how long they had lived in their community. These papers were all that stood between them and being "deported" and returned to their slave status.

My mind traveled across the ocean to South Africa, to a time not so long ago when the lives of African peoples in South Africa were controlled by the dreaded Pass Laws that made it compulsory to carry papers at all times. Without a pass, they would be considered "illegal" and could be put in detention. Much like proposed guest worker programs for immigrants, South African Pass Laws Act specified where, when, and for how long an African could remain anywhere in his country.

My mind returns to the present. As the immigrant rights movement is building momentum nationwide, African Americans debate about where we should stand on immigration issues - shoulder to shoulder with immigrants, in direct opposition or on the sidelines. I believe that if we look just under the surface, we can see that our Black and Brown fates are deeply intertwined.

As I am watching a video, Rights on the Line, about the phenomenon of the vigilante movement along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Minutemen are on "night patrol," literally hunting the people trying to cross the border into the U.S. Dressed in their military garb, with flashlights, walkie talkies and weapons, the militia freely wield the privilege and the power of race and their legal status. As I watch them rounding up frightened men and women, hairs are raised on my arms.

Again, I seem to actually "remember" the plight of runaway slaves, the fear and desperation they felt as they were tracked and trapped by white militia and returned to a life where their labor was exploited and their lives were not in their control. As the Black-Brown debate continues, I see that we have both been sources of cheap labor. First, Africans were the slaves required to perpetuate the globalized economics of the 1700s known as the Triangle Trade (slaves, sugar and rum). Today, Latinos are the cheap labor required for maquiladoras south of the border (outsourced manufacturing needs of international business), international agribusiness, and jobs at the lowest rungs of the U.S. economy. Proposals for guest worker programs only perpetuate this model of workers without rights or protection. Black and Brown people have far more in common than we often realize.

Both Black and Brown are the targets of the racism used to justify unjust political, economic and social policy. Past and present, members of the exploited and marginalized communities are portrayed as different from and less than other Americans. The poison of racism continues to allow those who are privileged to feel morally justified as they exploit and dehumanize people who provide "cheap labor" and simultaneously blame them for their lot in life.

Both Black and Brown share common dreams of work with dignity, a better life for our families and our children. Isn't that why slaves escaped to the North and freed slaves initiated the Northern Migration? Isn't that why people from other countries risk their lives to reach the U.S. today? We all desire the opportunity to build a life and to be respected and accepted members of the communities and country where we live.

Black and Brown are not each other's adversaries; we are natural allies. The economic and political forces that doomed millions of Africans to servitude and later to second-class citizenship are the same forces responsible for unsustainable economic conditions in many foreign countries and the current migration of people to the U.S. They are the same forces responsible for conflict over jobs, wages, and economic opportunity in the U.S., a conflict that results in racism, discrimination and repressive legislation.

Because issues of labor, immigration and race are deeply enmeshed, we should be working together toward solutions that include all of us. We must (1) protect the rights and dignity of individuals who have come to the U.S. to work, (2) raise the labor standards and wages on both sides of the border through reform of international trade policy, (3) protect local economies everywhere, rather than allow them to be overwhelmed by trade agreements favoring international corporations, (4) guarantee that every U.S. worker has the right and the protection to organize, and (5) we must organize!

The border patrol officer is gone. Boarding the train in San Diego, I remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "We are caught in an escapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." Black faces brown faces human faces. My heart feels what my mind already knows. The people from across the border are not the problem. A system of economic exploitation and racism is the problem. Rather than believing our interests are in conflict, Black and Brown must stand in unity and work together to transform this system. There is ultimately one movement - the movement for human dignity and opportunity - and I am a part of it.

Eisha Mason is the Associate Regional Director for the Pacific Southwest Region of the American Friends Service Committee and co-founder of Soulforce Trainings. Contact her at: emason@afsc.org. From blackcommentator.org.

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A Bracero Program for the Willing?

- David Bacon -

President Bush's call for new guest worker programs threatens to unleash a new bracero era. Within days of winning re-election [in 2004], the president sent then Secretary of State Colin Powell and five cabinet secretaries to Mexico City to restart negotiations with Mexican President Vicente Fox.

In 2000, when Bush first took office, Mexico's then foreign minister Jorge Castañeda presented a proposal that included new guest worker programs, regularization of undocumented Mexicans, more permanent visas for family reunification, prevention of migrant border deaths and promoting Mexican economic growth "to create more opportunities for Mexicans to stay and thrive in Mexico."

These proposals have been swept off the table, except one. In a November 9, 2004 press conference in Mexico City, Powell said all that interests Bush now is "a temporary worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing U.S. employers."

In 1964, Ernesto Galarza, César E. Chávez and other Latino progressives succeeded in abolishing the old bracero program, created during World War Two's labor shortage, allowing U.S. growers to bring Mexicans to work in U.S. fields. They charged growers with maintaining military-style, exploitative conditions and deporting braceros if they complained.

Galarza and Chávez showed that growers created an oversupply of workers to drive wages down and used braceros to break farm worker strikes. Not coincidentally, the great grape strike that gave rise to the United Farm Workers started the year after the Bracero program ended.

The importation of workers by U.S. employers as braceros did not completely end in 1964. Four new visa categories were eventually created, allowing companies to bring guest workers into agriculture, high tech, health care and other industries. These programs have been condemned by labor and immigrant organizations for abusing workers much as the Bracero program did.

Whose Temporary Workers' Program?

In 1999, major U.S. employer associations banded together in the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a shadowy organization promoting temporary worker programs. EWIC quickly grew to include 36 of the country's most powerful employer associations. Headed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, EWIC includes the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (think WalMart), the American Health Care Association, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation, the Associated Builders and Contractors, the Associated General Contractors, and the American Meat Institute. All represent industries relying on immigrant labor.

As Bush began immigration reform talks with Fox in 2001, EWIC called for a temporary worker program. In 2002, the Cato Institute, a think tank close to the administration funded by conservative foundations, joined EWIC. A Cato Institute report also called for a guest worker program, suggesting issuing 300,000 temporary visas, good for three years and renewable for another limited period.

When Bush unveiled his immigration reform plan in January of 2004, it was taken almost word for word from the Cato Institute report and the EWIC recommendations. [The McCain-Kennedy Bill calls for similar measures.]

Bush's proposal was not warmly embraced by immigrants. A Bendixen and Associates poll reported 50 percent of the undocumented workers surveyed opposed it once its provisions were explained; only 42 percent supported it. Veterans of the old Bracero program were even more critical. One former bracero, Manuel Herrera, told AP reporter Juliana Barbassa, "They rented us, got our work, then sent us back when they had no more use for us."

Ventura Gutiérrez, head of an organization of former braceros, said, "People who lived through the old program know the abuse it will cause." The Frente Indígena Oaxaqueño Binacional (FIOB, the Oaxacan Binational Indigenous Front) condemned it because it did not guarantee respect for labor and human rights. Instead, FIOB says, "We demand a general legalization."

Nevertheless, one mark of EWIC's lobbying success is that guest worker programs are now being proposed from both sides of the aisle. In the last Congress, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators Tom Daschle and Chuck Hegel, and a Democratic bill introduced by Congressman Luis Gutiérrez and Senator Edward Kennedy called for expanded guest worker programs. [Kennedy and McCain introduced their current bill with similar provisions]. [ ]

David Bacon is an independent journalist and a documentary photographer.

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March 2004 Arizona Initiative Shows:

Failed Strategy of Militarization, Local Police and Vigilantes at Mexico Border

- Arnoldo García -

According to Representative SolomonOrtiz, a Democrat from south Texas, the border is "under siege" as a result of unauthorized migration. Testifying before the House immigration subcommittee last year, Ortiz also claimed that terrorists could exploit a "series of holes in our law enforcement system along the southern border." What holes?

In October 1993, just weeks before NAFTA was ratified by Congress, then-INS Commissioner Doris Meissner implemented "Operation Blockade," a new enforcement strategy to stop unauthorized migrants from crossing the border. The strategy consisted of placing one Border Patrol agent and vehicle every thousand yards through the El Paso metropolitan region. Even after Mexico protested, the strategy was extended to the entire breadth of the border within a year.

The now decade-old "prevention through deterrence" strategy deliberately forces migrants to cross through the most dangerous and isolated stretches of the border where they risk their lives and many times are at the mercy of unscrupulous smugglers, vigilantes and police.

A study by the Public Policy Institute of California deemed the immigration enforcement border strategy, costing over $2 billion per year, a failure and has produced only more migrant deaths. More than 4,000 migrants have died along the border since 1994.

Continuing to beef up the same failed strategy, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented the Arizona Border Control Initiative (ABCI) in March 2004 placing 200 more Border Patrol agents. Claiming success, in September 2004 DHS announced that over 350,000 immigrants had been arrested since the ABCI was launched. DHS failed to mention that by virtually closing other crossing areas near urban centers in California and Texas, migrants were being funneled through Arizona's desert and mountain region.

ABCI received another boost when the Minuteman Project, an anti-immigrant vigilante campaign in the Tombstone, AZ border area, announced its plans to patrol against migrants. "We will shut down - and I mean shut down - the West Desert Corridor," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner, after announcing that an additional 553 Border Patrol agents were being moved to Arizona as the Minuteman Project was launched April 1. This corridor comprises the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Over 3,000 agents are now patrolling the Arizona border alone, a 25 percent increase since the ABCI was initiated.

Unmanned aerial surveillance drones (UAV's) were also being used to patrol the border from the skies during ABCI's initial phase. ABCI also increased the Border Patrol's air fleet from 19 to 42 planes and helicopters and extended collaboration between the interior and border police.

Human Rights Crisis and Militarization

More than a failure, the border enforcement strategy has been a disaster for migrants and border communities. Isabel García, co-chair of the Tucson-based Coalición de Derechos Humanos (Coalition for Human Rights) said that this border strategy has only had one result, "The increased numbers of migrant deaths. 231 migrants died between October 2003 and September 2004 in Arizona alone. And then the immigration authorities have the gall to say the ABCI initiative is working!"

In their 2004 year-end campaign, the El Paso-based Border Network for Human Rights documented more than100 cases of human and constitutional rights violations committed against residents in the El Paso/southern New Mexico region. BNHR reported that over one-third of these abuses involved the Border Patrol; almost half were committed by local police and sheriffs enforcing immigration law.

Nathan Selzer with the Valley Movement for Human Rights (VMHR) in Harlingen, Texas reports that local police openly cooperate with immigration law enforcement, detaining people for the Border Patrol without fearing accountability. VMHR has documented a pattern of abuse treating "an entire group of people as highly exploitable," Selzer explained. "The predominant issue is worker abuse, immigrants who are either paid sub-minimum wage or not at all." Calling it "the inter-connectedness of human rights," Selzer said that abuses of authority are interwoven with systematic violations of labor rights, civil rights, women's rights, access to decent housing, healthcare,education and social services.

Born of the Border

The pre 9-11 border strategy continues reaching new levels of political and technological sophistication. The number of immigration agents policing the border has more than doubled since 2001, now numbering more than 16,500. Sean García of the Latin American Working Group in Washington, DC that monitors border enforcement, reports "The overall border budget has increased 40 percent since the 9-11 attacks"

More agents placed on the border have only resulted in more detentions. But the strategy has not ended unauthorized migration. In fiscal year 2004, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported more than one million migrants detained and deported on the Mexico-U.S. border, up from some 931,557 in 2003 and 955,310 in 2002. The Border Patrol reported that 36 percent had been previously apprehended.

In 1995 the Border Patrol began implementing a biometric recording of those arrested at the border to determine how many were repeat crossers, costing over $34 million the first five years. During 2001-2005, the Border Patrol was requesting some $560 million to install a remote 1,100-unit video surveillance system along the border, including building walls, roads and lighting. The U.S. and Mexico signed a "repatriation agreement" in 2004 allowing the U.S. to fly detained migrants into the interior of Mexico. The U.S. was deporting migrants into isolated regions on the Mexican side of the border, which received many complaints because of negative impacts on rural areas' abilities to absorb deportees who were usually left stranded.

Robin Hoover, a founder of Humane Borders that puts water in the desert for migrants told the Associated Press, "This is a ridiculous way to approach this problem. It uses a phenomenal amount of resources and achieves little results." While the U.S. argues that this program, like the rest of its border deterrence strategies, is meant to save lives, it actually punishes migrants to dissuade repeat crossing attempts.

The Mexican government has also devised new strategies synchronized with U.S. national security interests. In Tamaulipas, a Mexican state abutting Texas, deported migrants are being fingerprinted and checked for criminal records. Mexico has also started a "failed" migrant pilot project. Migrants who have been deported more than three times back into Mexico are offered work in maquiladora factories in Piedras Negras, an isolated border town.

We can expect more militarization and migrant deaths. Over the next five years the new National Intelligence and Terrorism Prevention Act, signed into law by President Bush last December, is slated to double the number of border agents and triple the number of interior enforcement agents, while adding 8,000 new jail beds for immigrants annually. The REAL ID Act promises to usher in a new era linking interior and border enforcement at a new level.

Every immigration reform since 1986 has overwhelmingly emphasized draconian enforcement initiatives over other measures and strategies that could ameliorate unauthorized migratory entrance into the U.S. The results? More border deaths and deportations. Only a generous and humane legalization program, which unites families and protect rights, can end the deadly crisis at the border

Arnoldo García is the editor of Network News, National Network For Immigrant And Refugee Rights, www.nnirr.org

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Conscientious Objectors Day May 15

Salute to War Resisters!

Conscientious objectors, peace activists, military families, veterans, active-duty soldiers, students, youth, women, and parents - at home and abroad - are continually stepping up their collective opposition to U.S. imperialist wars and aggression.

Marking International Conscientious Objectors Day, May 15, people in many countries including Turkey, Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere held various actions. Workshops were organized to discuss how to increase support for those who refuse to join the military and the further strengthening of the anti-war movement. Thousands of soldiers in the U.S. have filed for conscientious objector status or refused to report to duty, with some serving jail terms for their resistance. Many speak out at anti-war actions and participate in organizing at the high schools to oppose military recruitment.

During May 11-16, 2006, numerous peace groups also organized A Week of Action Uniting Resisters under the banner Operation Refuse War to mark the day. In the U.S. actions took place in Washington, DC, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area on May 15 to celebrate the Courage to Resist. Conscientious objectors, peace activists, military families, and others have joined the campaign.

In other anti-war actions, the New York Civil Liberties Union recently filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Defense, charging illegal recruitment efforts against high school students (often as young as 14). The Pentagon has been creating and using massive privately operated databases (e.g., JAMRS) to collect, maintain, and distribute students' personal and private information to recruiters.

The U.S. military spends at least $2 billion a year on recruiting efforts. Last month, the Army National Guard and Reserve posted their worst monthly recruitment numbers since last summer, well short of their goals for April. The Guard recruited 90 percent of its goal of more than 6500, while the Army Reserves recruited just 83 percent of its goal of 2600 for April. Those are the lowest percentages since last August and July, respectively. In fact, four of the six Reserve components slipped below their April recruiting goals.

About 40 percent of the U.S. force of about 135,000 troops in Iraq were Guard and Reserve troops. From October 2003 to September 2004, the Army National Guard missed its target of 56,000 new recruits by close to 7,000. Speaking to the constantly worsening recruiting crisis confronting the military, the U.S. Army's head of recruitment, Major General Michael Rochelle, told a press conference last year: "Today's conditions represent the most challenging conditions we have seen in recruiting in my 33 years in this uniform." Faced with growing pressure to shore up continually declining enlistments the military continues to use abusive, deceptive, and desperate recruiting tactics. Even so, the broad resistance to war being organized, at the high school level and among college youth, is making it more and more difficult for the armed forces.

Officers Suing to Leave Army Reserve

At least 10 Reserve officers have sued the Army, saying they should be allowed to get out because they have finished their mandatory eight years of service. "What the Army is saying is even though you are promised up front eight years as a Reserve officer, they are saying they can keep you as long as they desire," said Stuart Slotnick, a lawyer involved in such cases.

In recent years in order to keep soldiers beyond their original terms of service the Army Reserve has adopted a policy barring officers from leaving the service if their field is undermanned or they have not been deployed to Iraq, to Afghanistan, or for homeland defense missions. The Reserve has used the unpublicized policy, first adopted in 2004 and strengthened in a May 2005 memo signed by Lieutenant General James R. Helmly, its commander, to block the resignations of at least 400 Reserve officers, according to Army figures.

Under another practice, known as "stop-loss," thousands of active-duty Army and Reserve soldiers have been prevented from leaving the military, even though their time is up. Many call the policy a "backdoor draft." As of January, more than 13,000 soldiers were being kept in the service under stop-loss.

Current unofficial estimates of Iraqi deaths and injuries total roughly 250,000 while American deaths and injuries exceed 50,000. It is estimated that 100 bodies a day are delivered to the Baghdad morgue alone and that one person an hour is killed in Basra, Iraq's second largest city. Other coalition forces are suffering dozens of casualties every month in both Iraq and Afghanistan. An estimated 75 percent of troops in Iraq support withdrawal by the end of the year and 25 percent support immediate withdrawal.

In related news, according to a recent report by Canada's auditor general, the [Canadian] military is barely recruiting enough newcomers to replace its retiring veterans. In the last four years, the military recruited 20,000 people, but the effort resulted in a net gain of just 700 fully trained troops. Despite broad opposition among the Canadian people, the Canadian government is currently debating a motion to extend Canada's participation in U.S. aggression in Afghanistan.

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Support Our Troops, Anybody?

- Dahr Jamail -

As the violence in Iraq continues to escalate, at least 2,450 U.S. soldiers have been killed, with roughly ten times that number seriously wounded since the beginning of the invasion in March 2003. If current trends continue, May will be one of the deadliest months of the occupation yet for troops, with an average of over three being killed per day. 54 coalition soldiers have been killed in the first 16 days of May alone.

This probably explains why 72 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than 25 percent think the U.S. should exit immediately. The same poll found that only one in five troops in Iraq want to heed War Criminal Bush's call for them to "stay as long as they are needed."

The occupation, now well into its fourth year and going strong, has already produced 550,000 Iraq war veterans. Troop morale is lower than ever before and dropping as fast as Bush's approval ratings. Further adding to the deteriorating situation is the mindless adherence to the highly absurd pledges of the "commander in chief."

"To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander in chief. Most Americans want two things in Iraq: They want to see our troops win and they want to see our troops come home as soon as possible," he says, ad nauseum, "And those are my goals as well. I will settle for nothing less than complete victory." Just as he settled for nothing less than complete exemption from military service in Vietnam, a fact his soldiers are all too aware of.

Meanwhile, troops returning from Iraq are finding little comfort in the hollow rhetoric of their chief chicken hawk. The medical attention necessary to support the troops is becoming scarcer with each passing tax cut.

When soldiers come home from Iraq, the support they need in order to physically and mentally recover from the hell of Iraq is way out of reach for most. With their pay and benefits cut, healthcare, already scarce in many cases, is soon to become even more difficult to access.

A case in point is Marine Lance Cpl. James Crosby. He left Iraq strapped to a gurney after his legs were paralyzed and his innards lacerated by shrapnel. When he exited the combat zone to head back home for treatment, he realized the military cut his pay by 50 percent. "Before you leave the combat zone, they swipe your ID card through a computer, and you go back to your base pay," he said.

Of Course He Supports the Troops

Veterans are a different matter, as a growing number of them are beginning to realize, waking up to the fact that there is an ever-widening gap between what their "commander in chief" says and what he does. While Mr. Bush is busy telling reporters that he supports the troops in Iraq, even military websites are posting stories like one from February 28 of this year titled "Vets May Be Denied Health Care," which stated:

"At least tens of thousands of veterans with non-critical medical issues could suffer delayed or even denied care in coming years to enable President Bush to meet his promise of cutting the deficit in half - if the White House is serious about its proposed budget. After an increase for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing by leaps and bounds, White House budget documents assume a cutback in 2008 and further cuts thereafter."

In the same story, Representative Chet Edwards of Texas, the top Democrat on the panel overseeing the VA's budget, said, "Either the administration is proposing gutting VA healthcare over the next five years or it is not serious about its own budget."

Disturbingly and more recently, on March 21, a House Budget Committee report shows us that [gutting care] does indeed appear to be the Bush plan for "supporting the troops":

The President's 2007 budget provides $36.1 billion for appropriated veterans programs, which is $2.9 billion above the amount enacted for 2006 and $1.8 billion above the amount needed to maintain purchasing power at the 2006 level.

Beyond 2007, however, veterans' funding is cut almost every year. Over five years, the budget cuts funding $10 billion below the level the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates is needed to maintain purchasing power at the 2006 level.

Thus, their "commander in chief" will cut the veterans discretionary budget by $10 billion over the next five years.

Supporting Troops, Pentagon Style

To save the troops from lack of healthcare, our government has devised an ingenious solution, which is to let them continue in combat. Last week the U.S. military was found to be violating its own rules concerning mentally ill troops by sending them back into combat. A recent news piece by the Hartford Courant stated:

"U.S. military troops with severe psychological problems have been sent to Iraq or kept in combat, even when superiors have been aware of signs of mental illness."

Citing records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and interviews of families and military personnel, the newspaper reported "numerous cases in which the military failed to follow its own regulations in screening, treating and evacuating mentally unfit troops from Iraq." The piece tells us that 22 U.S. soldiers committed suicide in Iraq last year, which is the highest suicide rate since the war began.

The article goes on to say that some of the service members who killed themselves during 2004 and 2005 had been kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, and had been prescribed antidepressants after little or no mental health counseling.

Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, minces no words: "I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on [antidepressants], when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal. You're creating chemically activated time bombs."

The article also quotes Dr. Arthur Blank Jr., a psychiatrist who assisted in having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recognized as a diagnosed illness after the Vietnam War: "I'm concerned that people who are symptomatic are being sent back. That has not happened before in our country."

Turning Troops Into Time Bombs

Among medical professionals, there is an unstated urgency that soldiers receive adequate treatment promptly upon returning home. "If we don't get intervention within the first five years, the veteran is set up for a lifetime of problems," says John Wilson, a psychology professor at Cleveland State University. In an Associated Press (AP) story from April 30, Professor Wilson also adds, "Iraq is a nonstop, 24-seven, hostile environment, so what happens is that these guys are incredibly wired all the time. One of the things we learned from Vietnam is that once that hyper arousal response develops, it doesn't go off."

The tragic death of Andres Raya, a 19-year-old U.S. Marine, demonstrates this condition. The young man decided to commit suicide by inducing a gun battle with police officers in his hometown of Ceres, California, with the apparent motive of avoiding an impending return to duty in Iraq.

Raya, who fought in the April 2004 U.S. assault on the city of Fallujah, had returned to the U.S. on January 8, 2005 for a holiday. His mother later described his condition to the Modesto Bee thus: "He came back different."

He told his family on several occasions he did not want to go back to Iraq. According to local police, Raya went to a liquor store in Ceres wearing a poncho and "talking about how much he hated the world." He asked the store owner to call the police. Police officer Sam Ryno responded. He arrived to find Raya pulling the assault weapon from under his poncho. He shot Ryno, causing serious injuries. When another police officer arrived in the liquor store parking lot, Raya shot him twice in the back of the head, killing him, and then disappeared. Three police departments, the California Highway Patrol, and SWAT officers had to search the area for the distraught veteran. When they found him, after a brief but fierce gun battle, Raya was dead, with over 60 bullets in his body.

An article in the Modesto Bee described the final battle as Raya "shooting military style at the officers," while using "some of the same darting and dodging techniques we have seen in reports from Iraq." The police chief of Ceres told the Bee, "It was premeditated, planned, an ambush.... It was suicide by cop."

PTSD: "Post" for a Reason

Veterans who make it home alive from Iraq are immediately faced with the task of reconstructing their lives as they battle the effects of PTSD, which include anger, rage, isolation, sleeplessness, anxiety and anti-social behavior. In another AP story from April 28 of this year, the body of Spc. Robert Hornbeck, 23, was found in a hotel in Savannah, Georgia, after he had been missing for 12 days.

"A body found with items belonging to a Fort Benning soldier was discovered at a downtown hotel after guests complained of a foul odor in the lobby," read the story. Hornbeck had spent a year in Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division and was to be married to his college sweetheart this July. Instead, due to lack of treatment for PTSD, "A maintenance worker at the De Soto Hilton hotel found the body of a man inside a large piece of air-conditioning equipment. Firefighters wearing hazard suits removed the body several hours later." His father believed that Hornbeck was highly intoxicated at the time of his death.

Then there are the soldiers who come home suffering massive trauma from their experience in Iraq. Joshua Omvig, a soldier from Iowa, returned home and killed himself in front of his mother, due primarily to lack of assistance in dealing with his PTSD. The distraught parents of the 22-year-old veteran decided to deal with their loss by creating a website in his memory, where his mother described the emails they receive from other soldiers: "It's been hundreds a day - so many heartbreaking stories. It's like the same story over and over again, just different names, different towns. A lot of them will make you cry, there's so much pain."

A 2004 study of several Army and Marine units returning from Iraq and Afghanistan that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine found only between 23 and 40 percent of those with PTSD sought treatment. And post-traumatic stress is called "post" for a reason - its most serious symptoms usually emerge long after the trauma is over.

Confessions from the Accountability Office and Others

Last week the Government Accountability Office announced that "less than one quarter of the U.S. military's Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who show signs of post-traumatic stress are referred for additional mental health treatment or evaluation, according to a government study."

Nonetheless, the VA has admitted that a staggering 35 percent of veterans who served in Iraq have already sought treatment in the VA system for emotional problems from the war. This statistic was also confirmed by a U.S. Army study.

A piece written by Judith Coburn for Tom Dispatch entitled "Shortchanging the Wounded," posted this April, reveals many of the following startling statistics.

Nearly one in three veterans has been hospitalized at the VA, or visited a VA outpatient clinic, due to an initial diagnosis of a mental-health disorder, according to the VA itself. These numbers are consistent with a recent Army study on soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Such a rate might add up over time (depending on how long these occupations last) to what could be over half a million veterans who need treatment.

The VA admits its disability system was overburdened even before the administration invaded Iraq; and, by 2004, it had a backlog of 300,000 disability claims. Now, the VA reports that the backlog has nearly doubled, at 540,122. By April 2006, 25 percent of the rating claims took six months to process. So veterans wounded severely enough to be unable to work are left high and dry for up to half a year. Worse yet, an appeal of a rejected claim frequently takes years to settle. One hundred twenty-three thousand disability claims have been filed so far by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, in its budget requests, the Bush administration has constantly resisted congressional demands to increase the number of VA staffers processing such claims. Here is what the VA's national advisory board on PTSD says in a report released in February, 2006:

[The] VA cannot meet the ongoing needs of veterans of past deployments while also reaching out to new combat veterans of [Iraq and Afghanistan] and their families within current resources and current models of treatment.

How many Iraqi veterans will eventually join the ranks of the 400,000 troops-turned homeless vets already on the streets of American cities? [...]

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq, dahrjamailiraq.com.

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