“The Border Crossed Me”

The weekly newsletter of the Mexico Solidarity Project

“The Border Crossed Me”

Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

The Mexican War, 1846-1848

You’ve all probably heard the Chicano saying, “I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me.” Nothing is sacred or natural about a border. It’s a movable line in the sand drawn by the world’s powerful countries to further their own interests.

The US southern border is a classic example. The still fledgling United States coveted Mexican land to the southwest of its pre-1846 boundaries in order to expand from “sea to shining sea” and gain access to the shipping opportunities of the Pacific coast. In 1846, the US found a transparent excuse to start a war, and in 1848 they victoriously drew a new border with Mexico. Mexico shrank by nearly half, and the US grew by nearly a third.

Longtime Chicano activist Bill Gallegos has argued elsewhere that if it weren’t for the annexation, the US today might be a second-rate capitalist power like Germany rather than the world’s major superpower. Today, he reflects on what moving the border meant and means for people of Mexican descent in both Mexico and the US.

Donald Trump and the Republicans have made the southern border the major issue of his presidential campaign. They have successfully framed migrants as dangerous alien invaders who threaten their vision of a country where white makes right.

Chicanos have a different vision. They refuse to contemplate a third and even more vicious episode of ethnic cleansing. The stakes in the US election could not be higher — for Chicanos and for the rest of us.

For a deeper dive into current news and analysis in English, check out our media website. And definitely see the new English podcast ¡Soberanía! (Sovereignty) with José Luis Granados Ceja and Kurt Hackbarth.  They entertain, while dismantling the lies and distortions about Mexico fed to us by the mainstream media.

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A Chicano Looks at Immigration from Mexico

People migrate — and borders migrate too! As a Chicano, how did US “border policy” affect your ancestors?

Some of them were working there when the deadly Ludlow Massacre occurred. Striking miners and their families had built a tent city and dug pits to protect tents from the wind. Gunfire from the massacre started a fire that burned up the tents and the people in them. After the massacre, armed miners from other states poured in to defend the Ludlow workers. Yes, southwestern Chicanos have a history not only of oppression but of defiant resistance!

The US has promoted the myth of a welcoming country. The Statue of Liberty beckons the poor. Why has migration become the defining issue of the coming US elections?

In the 1900s and the early 20th century, people flowed freely across the US-Mexico border. The US economy needed workers for its expansion — railroad builders, miners, farm workers — all were in great demand. The “immigration question” didn’t exist. That didn’t mean there was no racism. Of course there was. That’s a US constant. You weren’t just Mexican, you were a “dirty Mexican!”

Former president Donald Trump often refers to “Operation Wetback” as the model for his promised ethnic cleansing campaign.

In the 1960s and 1970s, we had a muscular left, and we won immigration reforms that treated non-European migrants more fairly. Trump plans to reverse those reforms; his open racism targeting Mexicans is central to his campaign to reclaim the White House. It’s a blatant appeal to white supremacy and plays on white fear of losing their privileged economic and social status. Trump touts that whiteness when he welcomes “clean” immigrants from “Norway or Denmark” but rejects immigrants of color from “shithole countries.”

Yet, a Republican trend is growing among Latinos. Why?

That story is overblown. In the 2020 midterm elections, Latinos voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. Regional differences exist, and Texas is where you mostly hear about that Republican trend. For various reasons, Texas has always had a more conservative Chicano population.

1954 Operation Wetback, NRA History Part 2: Operation Wetback & the NRA | by StrategyCamp | Medium

But elections are also a class issue. In the civil rights era, we won reforms such as affirmative action, which helped create a growing Latino middle and business class. Not surprisingly, some Latinos side with those who have similar economic interests rather than those from the same racial/ethnic groups.

Now, the immigration debate has been framed as a national security question, but you seem to suggest that another frame is labor.

But at the low end of the pay scale is the H2-A, a temporary visa for agricultural workers that Biden greatly expanded to avoid the issue of “illegality.” You could say it’s a program to make exploitation legal! Agribusiness relies on undocumented workers and we all know this. Under the H2-A, workers are recruited, mostly from Mexico, to sign contracts with a single agribusiness.  The program doesn’t allow them to leave that company to look for better jobs, and, at the end of the picking season, they are sent back to Mexico — with no path to a green card.

The class bias of these programs shows clearly that immigration policy is about importing and exporting the kinds of labor that US capitalists need at a given time.

That said, a little-known fact is that Mexican migration has decreased. In fact, more Mexicans are currently returning to Mexico than are arriving!

Well, if you do as AMLO has done and double the minimum wage and provide financial supports like higher pensions and greater access to education and health care, people aren’t forced to leave! But a lot of poverty still remains in Mexico; the country has a long way to go. The best way to stem migration is to support the Mexican government’s programs to lift its own working class.

What can those of us who are pro-immigrant do now?

We can demand the right to vote for immigrants with green cards in local and state elections, as was once the case in forty states and towns for immigrants who came from Europe. Of course, we should advocate for a path to citizenship for all Dreamers, who are just as “extraordinary” as those O-1A immigrants. Joining those who fight against militarization and the inequities of our criminal injustice system, we can advocate for humanitarian ways to process all those seeking entry. Most importantly, labor activists must push to ensure that all workers in the US, whether immigrant or citizen, enjoy the same labor rights. No two tiers!

Because we — both descendants of immigrants and people like mine who were here when the Southwest was still part of Mexico — know the value of newcomers. We must reshape the narrative, and we can! Sí, se puede!

Sovereignty Is Never Up for Negotiation

We live in an age of declining empire — a dangerous time. As US power wanes, Washington is more desperate, more violent. Despite worldwide condemnation, it even refuses to stop arming the Zionist entity’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.

This is why sovereignty, never up for negotiation, must be defended more vigorously than ever. For the former colonies and those nations still struggling to be free, self-determination is sacrosanct.

Imperialism has no respect for sovereignty. None. For this reason, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) fierce and unrelenting defense of national sovereignty is a beacon to oppressed peoples all over the world.

Throughout his six-year term, AMLO insisted on Mexico’s sovereignty. He was determined to reassert public control over the country’s wealth in order to redistribute it to the people — Mexican humanism, as he calls it. In stark contrast, neoliberal-era Mexican presidents willingly handed over our resources to transnational capital, enriching themselves by cooperating with the US.

AMLO has also understood that he would need to defend his transformational project from Washington’s power. At this moment, as the country debates the constitutional reform that will radically reshape the judicial branch, AMLO has “paused” relations with the US and Canada over their inappropriate meddling in Mexico’s internal matters.

But he defends not only Mexico’s sovereignty. When a US-backed coup ousted Evo Morales from the Bolivian presidency and guerrillas threatened his life, Mexico sent a plane to literally rescue him. In 2019, when Juan Guaido declared himself Venezuela’s president, the US under then president Trump jumped to support him. Mexico backed Maduro’s legitimacy, halting the coup’s momentum.

Recently, the US once again hastily jumped to recognize the rightist candidate in Venezuela’s election as the legitimate president. But Mexico once again supported Venezuela’s sovereignty, demanding respect for the country’s judicial and electoral institutions against the opposition’s claim that the election was fraudulent.

Bogged down by its own presidential election and the Middle East’s brewing regional conflict, Washington this time deferred to the leadership of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, whose presidents defended Venezuela’s control over its own election. The US, embarrassed, withdrew its support for the opposition.

But in contrast to these “progressive” leaders, AMLO remained resolute in defending Venezuelan sovereignty and institutions. When Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva proposed new elections and Colombian President Gustavo Petro proposed a power-sharing agreement for Venezuela, AMLO opted out of the tripartite mediation effort. As social movements in the region correctly pointed out, the sort of interference proposed by Brazil and Colombia is an affront to sovereignty, even when it comes from friendly governments.

At the end of the month, AMLO’s term comes to a close. His defense of sovereignty, not only for Mexico but throughout Latin America, will stand as one of his most enduring legacies. For that, we thank him. Gracias!

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Compiled by Jay Watts.

They Must Learn to Respect Mexico’s Sovereignty: President AMLO Telesur English. During his morning press conference, he announced that he had decided to “pause the relationship” with U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar and Canadian Ambassador Graeme C. Clark.

Poder Judicial: contra la reforma, la mentira La Jornada. Los miembros de la judicatura deben cesar sus engaños a la opinión pública, deponer su actitud beligerante, reconocer que en un régimen democrático la soberanía reside en el pueblo y aceptar que, mediante el voto, la mayoría de los mexicanos ha respaldado un proceso de transformación que exige a los funcionarios aunar la pericia profesional con la sensibilidad social y la búsqueda del bien común.

Kate Linthicum, Are Mexican drug cartels as powerful as people think? Los Angeles Times. The narco-narrative is “the public justification of a militarized policy that has been pushed into Latin America from the Global North, and it has resulted in bloodshed affecting the most impoverished and disenfranchised and vulnerable sectors,” says Oswaldo Zavala.

Viri Ríos, Hundir a México Milenio. Ante el fracaso de la oposición para lograr que los consejeros del INE le quitaran la mayoría calificada a Morena a la mala, es decir, cambiaran la interpretación constitucional a modo de la oposición, su siguiente estrategia es hundir el barco completo. El país completo.

Mexico’s Tizapa mine offline due to strike, Penoles says Reuters. The union, which represents the mining, metallurgical, and steel industries, is citing violations of a collective labor agreement signed in April, Penoles said in a filing.

Guadalupe Fuentes Lopez, Menos pobres en el retiro Sin Embargo. Adultos mayores, el grupo más olvidado con Calderón y EPN, redujo su pobreza con AMLO.

Maya Averbuch and Alex Vasquez, Mexico’s Electoral Court Confirms Morena’s Strength in Congress Bloomberg. The court in a statement called parties’ complaints about proportional representation “unfounded.” The electoral authority’s decision, which it confirmed in August, gave Morena and its allies, the Green Party and the Workers’ Party, 364 seats in the lower house and 83 seats in the Senate.

AMLO inaugura el Parque Ecológico Lago de Texcoco a 6 años de la cancelación del NAICM El Economista. “Es un acto de justicia ambiental, porque recupera la tierra (…) También es un acto de justicia social porque no se nos debe olvidar que aquí quisieron construir un aeropuerto y que por ello reprimieron para que no fuera el pueblo quien evitara la construcción”, dijo la presidenta electa de México, Claudia Sheinbaum.

Alex Thompson, Hans Nichols Kamala Harris flip-flops on building the border wall Axios. If she’s elected president, Kamala Harris pledges to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the wall along the southern border — a project she once opposed and called “un-American” during the Trump administration.

Gerardo Hernández, Regulación de plataformas digitales: ¿La gran reforma laboral de Claudia Sheinbaum? El Economista. “Lo que tiene que ver con la informalidad de los repartidores es algo muy importante, porque ni siquiera tienen contrato; son ‘socios’ de las grandes trasnacionales. Necesitamos que en este trabajo que ha crecido mucho en nuestro país, particularmente en las grandes ciudades, tengan derechos estos trabajadores”, expresó Claudia Sheinbaum en una conferencia de prensa.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice. We see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of Mexico as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and Mexico’s national sovereignty.

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Agatha Hinman, Victoria Hamlin, Courtney Childs.  To give feedback or get involved yourself, please email us!

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