PHOTO/RICK REINHARD
LOS ANGELES — Across America, undocumented high school seniors prepare to leave school not knowing what’s in store for them. President Obama’s DACA order allows many young immigrants to work now, but will it expire, or be replaced by a new federal law? And what about the deportations, which have reached two million people during the Obama Administration?
If these seniors go to college, will their state allow them to pay resident fees like Texas and California do, and Florida’s House voted for on March 20th? Or will their state charge them at the much higher non-resident rate? Will it let undocumented students receive state grants? Will the federal government finally let them get Pell Grants?
Instead of waiting for answers, undocumented youth are taking action, like millions of young Americans before them. They’ve held marches, government sit-ins, and rallies. When even arrests didn’t stop their movement, officials tried pulling them from the rest of the immigrant rights movement. States began programs to help undocumented students only, and the federal DACA order gave young students and soldiers rights which other immigrants lack.
It was a warning that although some young people may be free from deportation, they should accept that their families won’t be. But student leaders know that their movement only became stronger after the protests by millions of immigrants of all ages and occupations on May 1, 2006. They continued to fight for the rights of all immigrants with protests, such as those at the Milwaukee courthouse organized by Voces de la Fontera, and at Hilary Clinton’s March 5 speech at UCLA, where Seth Ronquillo, co-chair of IDEAS (Improving Dreams, Equality, Access, and Success) said “we want to hold the Obama administration accountable for the promises that they have made to our undocumented community for a pathway to citizenship.”
After the huge May 1, 2006 rallies, liberal politicians steered the movement into backing their election, using the slogan “Yesterday We Marched, Today We Vote.” Six years into the Obama Administration it’s clear that an independent movement can build political influence, but influential politicians won’t build an independent movement. Instead, undocumented activists must link up with documented workers who are struggling for education and jobs just like they are.
Though it looks like citizens and immigrants in every country are in competition, they are actually both competing with global capital for control of the future. Capital uses hi-tech tools to move and produce goods throughout the world, forcing millions to migrate to find work. They go from farms to city factories and from country to country, from unionized jobs to precarious underpaid ones—or no job at all. They suffer terribly, for their children, for their future.
Knowing this, undocumented students will not sell their loved ones out. As they learn more about their class brothers and sisters, they will unite with those loved ones, too. Together they can build the world that the musician Santana calls “sin fronteras, sin banderas, y sin carteras” (without borders, flags or wallets).
Steve Teixeira has been part of the struggle for immigrant rights since the 1970’s and in 2013 was invited to speak at Mexico’s UNAM on the issue. He works at California State, L.A.
