by Jane Sung E Bai & Kavitha Pawria

Hundreds of grassroots groups from around the US and Mexico attended the first-ever Border Social Forum, convened at Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in October 2006. Participants included indigenous communities affected by border militarization, as well as New York-based Asian immigrant groups such as Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) and CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities. Locally and nationally, Asian immigrant communities have always been part of the fight to build a movement for immigrant rights. DRUM and CAAAV attended and held workshops connecting migrant issues across race as well as geography-looking at how the most egregious enforcement techniques from the border are slowly and systematically moving into the interior of the US; and, building solidarity for an international movement to resist the building of border walls in Palestine and Mexico.

Monami Maulik, DRUM's director, reported back, “It was beautiful to witness such a powerful convening of migrants' groups from around the US and Latin America working in the trenches, dealing with the daily fights of state violence while also building an international movement for migrants' rights. We emerged with a deep, holistic platform that will form the basis of our unity. Particularly, it was ground-breaking to make the connections between how US corporations are profiting over the building of border walls in Palestine and Mexico at the cost of migrant lives.”

Participation at the BSF is just one part of ongoing activism for immigration reform. To be effective, groups must connect local base-building, federal policy changes, and international solidarity to address underlying migration factors (particularly US foreign economic and military policies).

The presence of diverse communities at the Border Social Forum arose from a long-term organizing strategy and an intentional development of broad coalitions. The struggle for humane and just immigration policies has always required strong alliances across diverse communities. As Asian immigrant community-based organizations, DRUM and CAAAV had to increase our capacity to build a local multi-national alliance with immigrant communities from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Such coalitions counter the divide-and-conquer tactic of the right, resisting the pressure to sell off the rights of one community for the sake of another.
In New York City, the Immigrant Communities in Action (ICA) serves as an effective vehicle for raising consciousness, building unity, and mobilizing resistance. A multinational coalition of grassroots community organizations representing over 50 nationalities and tens of thousands of immigrants, ICA developed a platform through a multilingual community process. In the end, we resolved to fight together, for each other. Our platform includes a rejection of guestworker programs and the Real ID Act (which essentially create a national identification card); immediate and fair legalization for all; an end to detention, deportation, border walls, and police collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security; human, civil and workers' rights; and driver's licenses for immigrants.

Inspired by the mass mobilizations in Chicago and Los Angeles in February 2006, NYC immigrant communities powerfully took to the streets to demand real immigration reform. While the passage of the Sensenbrenner bill (H.R. 4437) certainly served as a critical catalyst for mass uprising, the groundwork in building immigrant power had been laid by years of grassroots organizing. As Shamim Akhter, an asylee from Pakistan and member of DRUM's Immigrant Justice Program, summarized, “Taking to the streets was not a choice but a responsibility in fighting for our dignity-sharing the streets with millions of immigrants around the country was inspiring because we showed the grassroots power of immigrants and made our demands for a just, fair legalization clear.”

Following the mobilization, ICA pressured NY Senators Schumer and Clinton to take a more progressive position as the Sensenbrenner bill moved to the Senate. Activities included in-person meetings, a “Community Letter-Writing Festival” creating over 600 multilingual letters, and a Valentine's Day Rally when the letters were delivered to the senators. According to DRUM member Akhter, “We felt that, in the end, the politicians did not represent our voices even after so many meetings. This was frustrating but we knew it was important to communicate our demands to our elected officials-as part of a long fight to hold them accountable in making policies that make or break our families. They cannot be allowed to make decisions that affect us without hearing our demands.”

As locally based organizations, we recognize the direct correlation between immigration legislation and US foreign policy. We also participate in international activities promoting the rights of migrants.
Unfortunately, the connection between trade and migration, and the struggle for US immigration reform, is not yet widely recognized-or accepted. Immigration neither begins nor ends within US borders. We must understand the root causes underlying mass migration from every part of the Global South. By and large, and with increasing desperation, immigrants leave their home countries as a means of survival. As our members attest, their immigration is due to the impact of US-propagated war in every meaning of the word-via military means, economic sanctions, imperialist control of foreign governments and devastating trade policies. In this light, immigration reform movements must expend equal energy towards changing US foreign policies that force migrants from their homes.

Heading into the pre-presidential elections frenzy, the urgency to pass some form of immigration legislation before October will be paramount for the movement since Congress is unlikely to deal with it again until after the 2008 elections. DRUM and CAAAV, through ICA and the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, are engaging a multi-pronged organizing approach as Congress begins to debate a Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill.

Last year's powerful mobilizations informed many politicians (and the debate overall) of the urgency to legalize 14-20 million undocumented immigrants and the unfeasibility of a mass deportation program. Now our work is to maximize the fairness, expansiveness, and accessibility of this year's CIR proposals while minimizing enforcement provisions.

But the fight isn't over come October. We believe that we have only begun to taste our power as oppressed peoples to come together against the repressive policies of the US government-and, it is now our righteous and humbling task to build on this energy for a long-term movement for real power and dignity.

Jane Sung E Bai is the Executive Director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities (also known as Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence). Kavitha Pawria is the legal and policy organizer for DRUM-Desis Rising Up and Moving. Both groups are former RESIST grant recipients. For more information, contact CAAAV, 2473 Valentine Ave, Bronx, NY 10458; www.caaav.org. Or DRUM, 72-26 Broadway, 4th Floor, Jackson Heights, NY 11372; www.drumnation.org.