The Battle for World Public Opinion | Frontera NorteSur News

November 13, 2010

[On the GFMD & International Migration]

From Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news

Internationally, migration stands out as one of the most heated issues of the times. Across the world, restrictionist measures increasingly shape public discourse. On November 10 and 11, representatives of 146 governments met in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they discussed how public perceptions of migrants figure in the contemporary global political landscape.

A consensus on combating the demonization of migrants was evident at the the Fourth Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), but differences emerged on how best to counter anti-immigrant sentiments and whether governments-especially those from the developed world-are doing enough to curb outbreaks of xenophobia and support immigrants.

At one session, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanathem Pillay stressed that governments are obligated to apply international legal instruments dedicated to the rights of migrants. Pillay urged more countries must ratify the Migrant Workers Convention. “It’s shameful that only about 40 states have ratified this convention, which has been around for about 40 years,” she said.

The host country of the 2010 GFMD, Mexico is among nations which has signed and ratified the Migrant Workers Convention.

Based in Switzerland, an international network of civil society organizations is promoting the ratification and monitoring of the agreement, which mandates that signatories accord rights to immigrant workers that are increasingly the source of heated political disagreement in developed nations. The members of the network include Anti-Slavery International, Human Rights Watch, the World Council of Churches and many other labor and human rights advocates across the world.

Fresh from a speech delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations in which he highlighted the “critical role” of immigration in US history, State Department official Eric P. Schwartz led the US delegation in Puerto Vallarta.

In a presentation to the GFMD, Schwartz, an assistant secretary for refugee and migration affairs, spoke about the Obama administration’s efforts to assist local and state governments in refugee resettlement and the integration of newcomers in host communities.

Although perceptions of migrants are shaped by interactions at the local level, it is incumbent on Washington to help ease the transition of migrants and their integration into society, Schwartz said. To do otherwise, he said, represents a federal let-down of local communities.

Government has a role to play in shaping public attitudes about immigration, Schwartz told a packed room, specifically through a leadership that channels concerns and fears, opposes the demonization of immigrants and emphasizes the costs to society of keeping migrants as an “underground population.”

Despite the prevalance of a “difficult conversation” on immigration in the US at the moment, Schwartz said demographic changes were among reasons he was optimistic about the long-term future of immigrants in a nation built up by immigrants. In the not-too-distant future, no single racial or ethnic group will constitute a majority in the US, he added.

A representative of the socialist government of Bolivian President Evo Morales questioned the immigration policies of the US and other developed nations. Eliciting a round of applause from an audience stacked with officials from different governments, Alfonso Ramiro Hinojosa, general director of consular affairs for Bolivia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, slammed measures like Arizona’s SB 1070 law for inflamming public opinion against migrants.

Schwartz countered that the Obama administration opposes SB 1070 and backs comprehensive immigration reform as an answer to the growing attempt by states to assume federal authority. In comments to Frontera NorteSur, Schwartz reiterated that President Obama is against several parts of SB 1070, and both the US president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have taken time to “articulate their set of concerns” about the law, as well as speak out on the general importance of immigration to “our well-being.”

Internationally, SB 1070 continues being a contentious matter. In Puerto Vallarta, flyers were passed out at the GFMD urging readers to contact Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and demand that the 2011 All-Star Game be moved out of Phoenix.

Washington’s response to SB 1070 is still “insufficient,” Bolivian official Hinojosa told Frontera NorteSur. “This law continues generating dramas among migrants in our countries,” Hinojosa said. Bolivia’s posture, he said, is shared by the rest of South America.

In late October, Bolivia hosted the most recent meeting of the South Amercan Conference on Migration, a grouping which brings together 12 nations. The regional sentiment, Hinojosa added, is to uphold a “dignified immigration” that respects human beings who are usually subordinated to the interests of capital.

Founded in 1999, the South American Conference on Migration promotes a gradual but decisive drive towards a “regional integration based on the construction of the free mobility of persons and South American citizenship,” according to an organizational document.

Hinojosa estimated that about 250,000 Bolivians currently reside in the US. In the bigger scheme of things, Bolivia is among countries in the world that could be most impacted by climate change and forced migration – issues which were considered in this year’s GFMD.

According to Hinojosa, President Morales’ government considers a climate agreement at the upcoming Cancun summit a “top priority,” but will not be too disappointed if no accord materializes from next month’s world meeting. The massive turn-out of 30,000 at the Cochabamba climate conference hosted by Bolivia last spring is an example of the inexorable tide in favor of climate action, Hinojosa insisted.

“We’re accumulating forces,” the Bolivian diplomatic official said. “If not Cancun, something soon.”

On immigration, Hinojosa said “double-talk” characterized the stances and policies of developed countries. Besides SB 1070 in the US, he exorciated Italy’s denial of health care to migrants, France’s deportation of Romas and the failure of developed nations to ratify the Migrant Workers Convention.

Hinojosa said he was dismayed that he had not heard a single Mexican official address the massacre of 72 Central American and South American migrants in the northern Mexican border state of Tamaulipas last August. “Not talking about it, doesn’t make it go away,” he maintained.

Not surprisingly, debate at the GFMD examined the role of media in shaping public perceptions of migrants. A representative of Lebanon reported how radio spots promote a positive image of immigrants, whose exodus after war broke out with Israel in 2006 caused a crisis for a small country suddenly short of foreign workers.

An official from the Phillipines described how his government employs the popular soap opera format on television to give migrants a high-profile in the public sphere. Armed with access to all the latest statistics on immigration and its economic impacts, the GFMD should do more in the public relations field for migrants, some speakers concurred.

Several members of non-governmental organizations were allowed to address government meetings of the GFMD. While pledging to continue her work against racism and xenophobia, Carol Barton of the United Methodist Church in the US said economic changes were needed to counter public insecurities that stem from the economic crisis and fan anti-immigrant attitudes.

“Just giving facts and figures doesn’t change the reality of those fears,” Barton said. Concrete action was necessary on home foreclosures, mass unemployment and other problems arising from the Great Recession, she said. Getting to the structural roots of economic problems, the church activist contended, was paramount “if we are going to end this kind of backlash that’s directed against migrants.”

The next GFMD is scheduled for Switzerland in 2011.

-Kent Paterson

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news

Center for Latin American and Border Studies

New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Will Migrants Gain Respect? | FNS Feature

November 11, 2010

Frontera NorteSur Feature

Will Migrants Gain Respect?

Countering racism. Ratifying the Migrant Workers Convention. Doing away with exploitative guestworker systems. Assuring the rights of migrant domestic workers. Regularizing “irregular” migrants. Special protections for women and child migrants. Treating migrant remittances as an income emergency brake rather than an economic engine. Helping Haiti in its time of dire need.

All the above were on the list of the proposals that emerged from the Civil Society Days of the Fourth Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) held this week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Attended by more than 400 delegates from 80 nations, the GFMD was billed as a major meeting examining the situation of the world’s nearly 215 million international migrants, according to recent numbers from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division.

In a report prepared for national governments also meeting in the same venue this week, delegates criticized the political and economic climate confronting international migrants, and denounced the massacre of 72 Central American and South American migrants in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas earlier this year.

“Civil society decries rising xenophobia that scapegoats migrants for broader societal and economic problems that are not of their making,” the GFMD delegates stated.

Deploring the “heavy emphasis on security,” the civil society report blasted militarization, detention, border controls and deportation.

“We urge governments to explore alternatives to detention that are not only more humane but cost less as well,” the report declared. “Children should not be detained under any circumstance.”

Hosted for the first time by the Mexican government, the GFMD was organized by the private BBVA Bancomer Foundation. Other named sponsors included the Spanish-owned BBVA Bancomer bank, MacArthur Foundation, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and Oxfam Mexico.

Separtely, President Felipe Calderon and First Lady Margarita Zavala attended the Civil Society Days of the GFMD. Security was extremely tight, as Mexican troops with heavy-caliber machine-guns and Jalisco state police in military-style uniforms ringed the Puerto Vallarta International Convention Center where the event was held.

Attendees were forced to pass through two police checkpoints, a metal detector and a bag search before entering the premises. Outside the sprawling conference hall on the edge of the resort town, Mexican soldiers scoured an adjacent estuary.

In prepared remarks that cited Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes and his concept of “mestizaje,” or cross-cultural fusion, Zavala termed migration “fundamental” to the identity of a multicultural Mexico. She also stressed the need to protect and assist child migrants.

Echoing his wife’s previous remarks, President Calderon’s words credited migration for helping develop both his country and the “largest economy of the 20th century” north of the border, despite the hardships suffered by Mexican families.

The leader of a country which is under international scrutiny for the treatment of Central American and other migrants passing through national territory to the US, President Calderon detailed several accords Mexico has struck with Central American countries that are designed to regularize immigration.

“Today, migration is not and never will be a crime in Mexico,” Calderon insisted.

Other Mexican officials who attended the GFMD included Interior Minister Francisco Blake, Jalisco Governor Emilio Gonzalez and Puerto Vallarta Mayor Salvador Gonzalez among many others.

While each country has its own particular experiences with migration, common themes resounded at the GFMD’s Civil Society Days. For example, defending domestic workers from human rights abuses and applying international labor standards to an isolated, vulnerable segement of the workforce was an issue that galvanized delegates from across the world.

Instances of horrific treatment that range from rape to torture happen in “Manhattan and Kuwait,” said US labor organizer Ana Avendano in an interview with Frontera NorteSur.

Avendano, who serves as the assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO for immigration and community action, said the US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not keep numbers on domestic workers, but an estimated 200,000 people of different nationalities toil away in homes in the state of New York alone.

According to Avendano, the AFL-CIO is actively supporting an international campaign for the specific inclusion of domestic workers in the International Labor Organization (ILO), so household employees can enjoy the rights of other workers-the 8-hour day, social security and time for rest and relaxation.

“We expect that it should be adopted,” Avendano said. “Really, this year should be about fine-tuning the convention.” The Obama administration, she said, has taken a stand in favor of a convention for domestic workers in the ILO.

“Domestic work is a particular kind of work, not just because it takes place in the household, but also because of its fundamental importance in the very fabric of society,” states RESPECT, a European network of domestic worker groups and supporters. “Without provision for child-care, care for the elderly, cooking and cleaning, society simply couldn’t function.”

In the US, New York recently passed a law that applies basic labor standards to domestic workers, and the measure could open the door to organizing a heavily immigrant sector of the labor force, according to Avendano.

Nationally, the AFL-CIO is supporting independent domestic worker organizing efforts, Avendano added, as well as a new intitiative called the Excluded Workers Congress that brings together domestic workers, day laborers, taxi drivers, farmworkers, unemployable ex-felons, and other people at the margins of the economy.

International labor advocates gathered in Puerto Vallarta cautioned that resistance to incorporating domestic workers into the ILO is still felt from the governments of Canada, Indonesia and some European Union member states.

“Domestic workers are organizing themselves, but there really is a need to work with the trade unions and civil society,” said Rex Varona of the International NGO Platform on the Migrant Workers Convention.

A big issue swirling around the 2010 GFMD had to do with the role of the forum in formulating international migrant policies. Although it grew out of the United Nations in 2006, the GFMD is not a formal meeting of the world body. Organized on an ad-hoc basis, the forum serves as a sounding board and networking space for both non-governmental and governmental organizations.

Civil society representatives credited the Mexican government and GFMD organizers for making sure that this year’s forum allowed greater opportunities for interaction between governmental and non-governmental delegates, but it is unclear how much weight the non-binding recommendations emanating from the unofficial meeting will have on international migrant policy, or if they will even have an impact on the next UN high-level dialogue on migration scheduled for 2013.

“Civil society and diaspora groups don’t want the Global Forum to be a talk show,” insisted Ndidi Njokou of the United Kingdom-based African Foundation for Development.

The moderator for the Europe-Africa non-governmental group in Puerto Vallarta, Njokou maintained that a standing committee needs to be established to carry out the work of the GFMD between meetings, as well as “an evaluation process for our progress.”

A veteran of the first GFMD in 2006, Njokou said the international gathering has made progress in advocating for migrants. “It is improving as it goes along,” she told Frontera NorteSur. “It has kept improving throughout the years, but a lot remains to be done.”

Nonethless, some pro-migrant organizations from Mexico and other nations showed up in Puerto Vallarta to protest the GFMD. An e-mail sent by a member of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement charged that the GFMD reeked of “illegitimacy” and only included “carefully selected” delegates whose expenses were paid.

At the entrance to the long jungle road leading into the Puerto Vallarta International Convention Center, a metal gate guarded by dozens of Jalisco state police officers barred protesters from the University of North Tamaulipas (UNT) who had made a time-consuming trek from the Mexico-US border to the Pacific Coast.

“In Mexico, we criticize the (US) border wall, but what do we have here?” questioned UNT Rector Francisco Chavira. “They don`t allow people who think differently to enter. The Mexican government is of the classist kind.”

As UNT students chanted “Racist Forum” far from the ears of GFMD delegates, Chavira sharply criticized the meeting as an exercise in demagoguery that “won’t do anything.”

Charging that corruption in the state and federal governments permitted the Tamaulipas migrant massacre to take place, Chavira insisted that human rights were not respected in Mexico.

According to media reports, Mexican authorities have detained at least eight people for committing the Tamaulipas massacre, while six other alleged complices reportedly perished in clashes with Mexican security forces.

Chavira and his students came to Puerto Vallarta with other grievances. The border educator urged his government to give Mexican consulates in the US the power to issue official identification cards to migrants for voting in Mexico. He demanded foreign-owned assembly plants in Mexico pay the equivalent of the US minimum wage, and called upon Mexican money transfer businesses like Banco Azteca and Elektra to return even a little portion of the profits they earn from remittances back to the families of migrant workers.

“The people inside don’t know about the migrant problem,” Chavira said. “This a light forum paid for by a private business, and coming from a private sector that benefits from migrant remittances and pays miserable salaries.”

-Kent Paterson

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

La AGP es un reto para mirar más allá de Carolina del Norte

The PGA is a challenge to see beyond North Carolina [See English version below]

Por Ada Volkmer

Recuerdo que me dio escalofrío cuando escuché que iba a participar en la reunión sobre la Acción Global de los Pueblos sobre Migracíon, Desarrollo y Derechos Humanos (AGP). Me emocionó pensar en salir de mi rutina cotidiana y ver el tema de migración con una perspectiva internacional.

En la AGP fueron cuatro días de plenarias, comidas, mesas redondas de discusión, reuniones, mezcal, baile y talleres donde cientos de activistas pro-migrante de todo el mundo se reunieron para compartir experiencias, sumar energías y combatir los sistemas que ignoran los derechos humanos.

Reflexionando sobre la semana pasada puedo decir que algunos momentos clave fueron:

Cuando una revolución de música derrumbó a Nora Jones con canciones y lemas de protesta de Marruecos, Estados Unidos, Togo y México (Como dice Arnoldo, pueblo que no canta, es pueblo que no vive);

Y también cuando yo era la única persona de los Estados Unidos en una reunión paralela sobre la detención y la deportación.

Esto era lo que quería salir de Carolina del Norte, la maldita 287g y los EEUU para hacer conexiones entre lo que esta pasando en mi comunidad y las muertes de inmigrantes en centros de detención en Corea del Sur;

La privatización de centros de detención en Malasia, la negación de la ciudadanía a hijos de migrantes Haitianos en la República Dominicana y los centros de detención aislados donde los inmigrantes no tienen acceso a recursos o consejo legal en México.

Los EEUU es un modelo para el resto del mundo y esta exportando la militarización de las fronteras, el duro cumplimiento de la ley de inmigración, la privatización de centros de detención y un marco de seguridad nacional que criminaliza a los seres humanos.

La AGP es un reto para nosotros como coalición de mirar mas allá de los veinte condados del oeste de Carolina del Norte, mas allá de la frontera México-EEUU y mas allá de las reformas de leyes anti-inmigrante estatales y nacionales. Es un reto para pensar a escala mundial y recordar que la migración es un producto de el colonialismo, el racismo, la explotación, la pobreza y la desigualdad.

Gracias a NNIRR por esta oportunidad. ¡Viva la justicia! ¡Viva México! ¡Viva el AGP!

Ada Volkmer es la Coordinadora de la Coalición de Organizaciones Latino-Americanas - una red de centros Latinos en las monta~as del oeste de Carolina del Norte.

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The PGA is a challenge to see beyond North Carolina

By Ada Volkmer

A year ago, I heard about the People's Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA) and I remember getting chills. The possibility of getting out of the daily routine, going international and looking at migration from an global perspective game me something to get excited about.

These four days of plenaries, box lunches, round tables, caucuses, mezcal, baile, and workshops brought together hundreds of migrants rights activists from around the world to share experiences, gather energy, and challenge the systems that ignore human rights and place the development of sending countries in the hands of migrants.

I'm still trying to get my thoughts around this last week, but I can say that highlights included:

A music revolution one morning in which Nora Jones was replaced with songs and chants from Morroco, United States, Togo and Mexico (Como dice Arnoldo, pueblo que no canta, es pueblo que no vive), and being the only person from the United States in a detention and deportation caucus.

It was just what I was hoping for – to leave North Carolina, 287g and the US and make the connections about migrant deaths in detention centers in South Korea, the privatization of detention centers in Malaysia, the denial of citizenship to children born of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, and detention centers in rural parts of Mexico where migrants have little access to resources or legal advice.

The United States is providing a model for the rest of the world and exporting the militarization of borders, enforcement regimes, the privatization of detention centers and a national security framework that unjustly criminalizes human beings.

The PGA challenges us as a coalition to look beyond our small scale (twenty counties in rural Western North Carolina), the US-Mexico border, and state and national reform of anti-immigrant laws and policies. It challenges us to think globally, to remember that migration is a product of colonialism, racism, exploitation, poverty and inequality.

Gracias a NNIRR por esta oportunidad. Viva la justicia! Viva México! Viva el AGP!

Ada Volkmer is the Coordinator of COLA – a network of Latino community centers in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

[Photo by / Fotografía por Arnoldo García.]

At the PGA: Migrant Rights Unite Us Across Borders

Salaam from the third day here at the People´s Global Action on Migration here in Mexico City!

By Monami Maulik

I am here at the People's Global Action gathering in Mexico City with with my colleague, Ayesha Mahmooda. Ayesha is a former youth member of DRUM and current Worker Organizer and has lived undocumented in the U.S. for 19 years until winning her deportation case this year.

I am excited to be here together representing South Asian and Muslim communities in the U.S. who are members of DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving. DRUM organizes a membership of over 1,000 South Asian and Muslim low-wage workers and youth who are fighting for their rights as migrants in the U.S.

We Raise Our Voices From New York to Mexico

DRUM played a major role in hosting the first ever People´s Global Assembly in New York City in 2005 as the UN released its report after the Global Commission on Migration and Development process. I had the chance also to testify at the last GCMD in Mexico City in 2005 about the need to de-link migration policy from national security.

In New York City DRUM hosted over 50 migrant leaders from Latin America, Asia, and Europe in our community of Jackson Heights. Bangladeshi women, who spoke no Spanish, shared our traditional food with Latin American women migrant leaders who spoke no English -- but they understood each other´s struggle without words. Later that week, we organized a town-hall and action at the UN as we saw the increasing importance this global process would take over the next decade.

We did not want unaccountable governments, private corporations and exploitative international institutions like the World Bank to decide our futures for us.

We decided that DRUM must raise the voice of migrant people ourselves in this global process towards human rights for migrants, rather than allowing the GFMD to only view migrants as tools to make greater profits for sending and receiving nations and corporations.

Migrant Rights Unite Us Across Borders

We are very honored and excited to be present at this international gathering with hundreds of migrant rights leaders from across the globe. We are humbled to be in Mexico, from where many of the 14 million undocumented brothers and sisters of ours in the U.S. come from. We see the dignity and pride in the faces of workers here, of indigenous people and the poor who are displaced by NAFTA yet continue to struggle for a better world. Mexico has a rich history and legacy of the workers and poor waging revolutionary movements for equity and human rights for all people.

On opening day of the PGA, I spoke on the welcome plenary about the need to unite across nationalities, both within the U.S. and globally, to challenge the 'national security' framework that is destroying the rights of migrants around the world.

The U.S after September 11, 2010 has created and spread this model of permanently placing all issues of migration as a permanent threat to national security, stoking exaggerated fears of terrorism. In the U.S., this has meant the mass raids, deportations and unjust imprisonment of thousands of Muslim immigrants. But it has not ended there and will only increase for all communities of color.

The national security paradigm in the U.S. has fundamentally channeled billions of dollars and unparalleled law enforcement resources towards the immigration enforcement regime of the Department of Homeland Security -- both in the interior and by hyper militarizing the borders.

This is at the same time that the US is waging endless wars and occupations that have murdered over 1.5 million people in the Middle East and South Asia since 2002. As the mothers of victims of this attack on Muslims in our membership say, "The government is manufacturing terrorists out of poor migrant workers in order to justify its endless wars abroad and security regime."

Yesterday, as we participated in a roundtable on National Security & Migrant Rights, this same story was told by half a dozen people from all over the world -- from Thailand to Mali, from Holland to Mexico. I learned that in Mexico, the government is copying the U.S. model and converted its national Migration Institute into the National Security Institute. Moreover, the Mexican government has opened up "Migration Centers" as National Security detention facilities that are top secret, deny access to lawyers and others, and use abusive tactics on migrants.

Under the national security paradigm, the end goal here is the same as everywhere : to permanently by-pass human rights and accountability and to justify non-transparency and the abuse of migrant people. A Haitian migrant leader from the Dominican Republic spoke about how Haitian migrants in the DR are being detained as 'national security' threats by claiming they will create crimes and degrade the environment.

Human Rights and Sustainable Development Make Us Safer

Today, we held a formal workshop on "National Security & Human Rights of Migrants" and drafted proposals that will be presented to the governments at their Global Forum on Migration and Development, where civil society will pressure the governments:
1) De-link migration policy from National Security globally, and
2) Reject the framework of National Security and replace it with "Human Security" -- that when human rights and access to sustainable development are provided for all, communities and nations are safest.

We are raising the issue of national security at the GFMD even though the U.S. government has been silent on the issue. We know that the U.S. is actively promoting this new tool to suppress rights and accountability behind closed doors with other governments. As Muslim migrants in the U.S., we are building bridges with our colleagues globally because we see that our organizing for human rights are interdependent and that none of us can win alone.

Saludos!

Monami Maulik
Executive Director, DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving

www.drumnyc.org/

Women migrants, women organizers at the PGA, leading the struggle for justice & human rights

By Laura Rivas

This is Day 3 of the fifth People´s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights in Mexico City.

This morning, we heard from Ana Avendaño [who works for the AFL] and William Gois [from Migrant Forum Asia] among others who spoke about the challenges we face to link issues across social justice movements and to create opportunities to work together to continue pushing for changes in policies affecting migrants and immigrants around the world.

So far, the highlight of the PGA for me has been participating in the workshop on Gender and Migration, held last night at the Ex Convent of San Hipólito, among the ghosts of women who have walked these hallways and traversed these corridors.

Women and men from communities around the world including the Philippines, Mexico, Korea, India, Africa, and the U.S. shared stories of women migrants impacted severely by inhumane repressive migration policies, and violence across the spectrum of family, work, community, the state and its agencies, and in transit from their home countries to the country of destination.

Quite literally, "from the womb to the workplace," women migrants experience human rights abuses and rights violations on a personal, physical, political, cultural, religious, and legal/constitutional level.

But as one of the sisters shared, we have a big task ahead of us, not only to ensure that a strong gender lens is cast over the broader discussions on migration, development, and human rights but also that as organizers, human rights defenders, advocates, activists, and community members, we make a commitment to work together to raise the voices of migrant women across the globe for justice and human rights.

| Laura Rivas co-coordinates the NNIRR's HURRICANE initiative (Human Rights Community Action Network) and organizes with community groups to document human rights violations and abuses. Photographs by Arnoldo García. |

Our culture, our words, our rights go with us wherever we go

EXILIO

Pablo Neruda

Your exile is round
a circle, a ring:
enveloped by your feet, you cross the earth,
but it is not your earth,
the light awakens you, but it is not your light,
nigh falls: you stars are missing
and you find brothers and sisters: it is not your blood

You become a ghost, ashamed
for not loving morethose who so love us.
and it is yet so strange to miss
the hostile thorns of your homeland,
the coarse neglect of your people,
the bitter affairs that still await
and howl at you at the door

*

EXILE

Pablo Neruda

El destierro es redondo
un círculo, un anillo:
le dan vuelta a tus pies, cruzas la tierra,
no es tu tierra,
te despierta la luz, y no es tu luz
la noche llega: faltan tus estrellas,
hallas hermanos,: pero no es tu sangre.

Eres como un fantasma avergonzado
de no amar más a los que tanto te aman,
y aún es tan extraño que te falten
las hostiles espinas de tu patria.
El ronco desamparo de tu pueblo,
los asuntos amargos que te esperan
y que te ladrarán desde la puerta.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was the preeminent poet of Chile and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) fue uno de los poetas más destacados de Chile; le otorgaron el Premio Nobel por literatura en 1971.

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The following poem was published on the back cover of the program of the People's Global Action for Migration, Development & Human Rights.

Renewing ourselves through solidarity & commitment to human rights for all

By Pancho Argüelles

México Tenochtitlán – México City

We gathered for the opening session of the People's Global Action at what used to be the Convent of San Hipólito, in the heart of México City, the place where I grew up.

I see the places and walk the streets my parents saw and walked. I walk around as if looking for them but they are no longer here, and yet they are. It is a bittersweet sensation. It is also bittersweet to be here today with my friends and colleagues, my “compas” from NNIRR and other allies from the delegation. I am happy to be able to share with them my crazy and beautiful city, its food, history, culture; but it is sad because after working together for immigrant rights for the past several years today we wake up to a post election day reality that announces more repression and suffering for our communities living and working in the U.S.

Yes, things look really bad for us in the U.S. Things have been bad for a long time but now with a wave of politicians who ran xenophobic and in many cases openly racist campaigns, coming into office all around the country at the local, state and federal level, we need to be prepared for things to get a lot worst. It is in times like these that we need to be able to dig deeper in our analysis and strategies and connect to our sources of strength and hope.

The People's Global Action meeting in the heart of México City is a good place to listen to what our sisters and brothers from Asia, Europe, South America and Africa are doing to confront policies and systems of worker exploitation, criminalization and repression. We understand the similarities. They are not a coincidence since the roots are the same: historical colonialism and racism in the past and brutal global capitalism, corruption and “low intensity democracies” today. While we advance in building our shared analysis and common agenda we also find strength by sharing stories of successful work of resistance and organizing being done all over the world.

We renew ourselves by renewing our solidarity and commitment to a world where all people have all rights.

From México City, Pancho Argüelles is the Co-Director of Colectivo Flatlander (working with Popular Education for Social and Racial Justice in Texas and the Gulf Coast Region)

[Photographs by Arnoldo García]

Migration, elections, and how we remember migrant deaths

Dispatch #1 from the Peoples’ Global Action on Migration, Mexico City

By Pedro Rios

Yesterday on November 2, hundreds of social justice and human rights defenders from over 70 countries gathered in Mexico City in the opening session of the 5th assembly of the Peoples’ Global Action on Migration, Development, and Human Rights (PGA). Concerned with how governments treat migration on a global scale, over the next few days delegates will be discussing how to force a more transparent process in government discussions that seek to market and commodify migrant workers.

The context for this meeting is ever more pressing given the results of the mid-term elections in the U.S. that project a right-wing and regressive politics for migration issues. If political campaigns are any indication of how intolerable conditions have become for migrants, the new Congressional make-up and its vicious Tea Party influence paints a bleak future for addressing issues of vulnerability for migrants in the US. Those vying for political power from throughout the political spectrum promote a calloused and accepted bigotry that frames migration as a dehumanized process, whereby migrants are portrayed as degenerates.

"Managed Migration" or the Privatization of Migration Control?

From this vantage point, governments (and their corresponding corporations, or vise-versa) respond to migration as a phenomenon that needs to be managed, controlled, marketed, and exploited. This is a dangerous proposition if the US exports immigration proposals at the global level: that the function of governments in response to reactionary tendencies is to manage migration like a corporate outfit.

It appears this has been the pattern with increased neo-liberal economic agreements around the world, intensified by militaristic projects. This latter part becomes much more alarming when it is infused and promoted by a sector of society that is ultra-nationalist, reminiscent of repressive regimes that shame our collective human history.

In Mexico City the PGA represents a refreshing moment, that at the global level, migrants’ rights advocates continue to push for a framework on development centered on more humanistic proposals. The belief that migrants are social agents capable of dialogue and producing solutions to global social, economic, and political problems is a necessary perspective missing in government and corporate meetings on the issue. Missing also is the foundation that projects of economic development should promote sustainable ways of living, that their commitment should be for how communities could remain whole.

At this convergence on migration, development, and human rights, delegates are insisting on the need to break the corporate paradigm that defines structures and mechanisms dealing with migration around the world, and offer something different, something new.

Remembering the Fallen Migrants, Organizing for Human Rights

Recalling the 72 migrants that were assassinated in Tamaulipas earlier this year, as well as the surge in border deaths this fiscal year and all who have perished along the migratory routes around the world, it was appropriate that delegates held a moment of silence on November 2, on Día de los Muertos.

While throughout Mexico and Latin America, and throughout cities in the United States, communities commemorate Día de los Muertos with altares, a day in which those who have passed are remembered and their lives celebrated, here at the Convento San Hipólito, where the main PGA plenary sessions are held, this recollection represented an affirmation that migrant lives matter.

I believe it is this insistence that we share as delegates: The need to re-frame development with alternative economic models, the need to find ways of making migration an option and not a necessity for survival, and the need to ensure that human rights mechanisms are integrated into development models that will frame how our communities will interact with each other for years to come.

Pedro Rios is the director of the American Friends Service Committee's U.S.-Mexico Border Program in San Diego, CA.

At the PGA migrant rights are an international movement for human rights

By Chris Zepeda-Millan

Both activists and scholars have long noted the global forces – from colonization to free-trade agreements – that have initiated international migration. Yet for the most part U.S. policymakers and immigrant rights activists continue to analyze, organize, and push for legislative “reforms” that are purely national-based. Meanwhile, the corporations and governments of the First-World nations that have kept the global south underdeveloped continue to work at transnational levels such as through the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD).

In response to the latter phenomenon, through the People´s Global Action on Migration, Development, and Human Rights (PGA), migrants and migrant rights activists from across the world have come together to say Ya basta [enough] with the militarization of borders! Ya basta with the criminalization, detention, and deportation of refugees and people without papers!

Migrants Building A People's Global Struggle for Justice and Human Rights

Migrants from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America have gathered in Mexico City to re-frame the migration debate from one that focuses on the “costs and benefits” of migrants to “host countries,” to one that looks at migration as reparations for the historical and current oppression and exploitation of Third World nations.

The PGA is a dynamic and exciting development in the global struggle for migrant rights. If the U.S. immigrant rights movement hopes to survive and be relevant, we cannot continue to try to put band-aids (e.g. national immigration reform) on an amputated leg (Third World underdevelopment as a result of wars and neoliberalism).

We need to learn from and work with the groups involved with the PGA and begin to simultaneously analyze and organize at the local, national, regional, and global levels with other migrant rights activists around the world!

Chris Zepeda-Millan is an activist-scholar who is researching issues and developing insights and analyses on immigrant rights. He is a Ph.D. Candidate at Cornell University.

Opening Day at the Peoples Global Action

By Rubén Solis
Southwest Workers Union
Mexico DF
Nov. 2, 2010

Yesterday was ‘dia de l@s Muert@s’ and the opening of the Peoples Global Action (PGA) took a \ minute of silence to remember all of the souls of migrants that have died.

The opening of the 5th Gathering of PGA took place in the historic center of Mexico DF in the ‘Convento Hipólito’. Several of the organizing leadership spoke in the opening including the main opening words by Colin Rajah of the National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (NNIRR) from the United States.

The opening program included a panel of six representatives of different regions in various continents including a sister from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the United States. The speakers framed the issues of migrant rights both in terms of the violation of Human Rights and the resistance and organizing work taking place against all risks. Migrants risk their lives in their transit from their country to the country of destination but organizers of migrant rights also risk their lives in the work of defending migrant human rights.

The opening of the PGA also heard from the organizing committee in Mexico DF and the Mexico City government under-secretary to the Mayor of this millennium city, welcoming the delegates and wishing the best in the work for the days ahead. The Mayor’s representative highlighted that Mexico DF is a city of transit for millions of migrants and thus the City government is aware of the issues related to migrant rights.

The opening night ended with fabulous music by the youth band from Michoacan. A ‘jarocho’ group also presented music from the Veracruz region. The hosts of the opening night served great traditional Mexican food, drinks like orchata and Jamaica, wine and Mezqual for the brave.

The opening night could not be absent of beautiful ‘altares’ commemorating the dead as it is celebrated widely in Mexico. Thousands of people were out in the street of Mexico celebrating the day of the dead.

The opening day of the PGA was very welcoming to the delegates coming from some 70 countries representing Asia, Africa, Central America, North America and South America and the Caribbean. The delegation from the United States, organized under the banner of National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (NNIRR), has close to 75 delegates with representatives from across the United States. Southwest Workers Union, a member organization of NNIRR is represented by Ruben Solis who will be participating in two workshop presentations on Migrant & Labor and Migrants and Free Trade.

Editor's Note: Rubén Solis is a co-founder of the Southwest Workers Union, absed in San Antonio, Texas.

5th People's Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights

Dozens of U.S. immigrant groups are now attending the People's Global Action in Mexico City. The PGA is a community-based gathering to develop and advocate alternatives to the 4th intergovernmental Global Forum on Migration and Development, meeting a week later in Puerto Vallarta on Nov. 10-11.

For attendees and those who are interested in promoting the rights of migrants around the world, we invite you to post your ideas, comments and experiences of the PGA.

U.S. Immigrant Groups Converge in Mexico, Join Global Call for End to Criminalization and Exploitation of Migrants

Contact:
Colin Rajah (415) 203-8763 crajah@nnirr.org
Catherine Tactaquin (510) 459-4557 ctactaquin@nnirr.org

(Mexico City, Mexico) Dozens of U.S. immigrant groups are heading to the 5th People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA) being held in Mexico City Nov. 2-5. The PGA is a community-based gathering to develop and advocate alternatives to the 4th intergovernmental Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), meeting a week later in Puerto Vallarta on Nov. 10-11.

Led by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), close to 80 groups from around the U.S. will join an estimated one thousand other civil society delegates from around the world at the PGA. This will be one of the largest international civil society gatherings focused on one of the most contentious issues worldwide, migration. NNIRR is a co-founder of the PGA.

“There is an unprecedented increase in hostility towards migrants around the world, including in the U.S.,” declared Colin Rajah, Director of NNIRR’s program International Migrant Rights & Global Justice and a member of the PGA international coordinating committee. “As governments discuss ways and means to maximize the development benefits of migration, migrants themselves are being traded as cheap and disposable labor commodities.”

Raising Migrant Voices for Justice & Human Rights

During the PGA, community- based, human rights, women’s, faith-based, labor, migrant workers and other organizations from Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe will share their experiences, strategize and develop action plans to counter the growing government attacks undermining the rights and safety of migrants. Key PGA representatives will also attend the Civil Society Days Nov. 8-9 at the GFMD, and will be delivering one of four international civil society presentations during the government forum.

The PGA serves as a broad-based civil society forum exposing governments’ repressive and inhumane criminalization of migrants around the world and the increasing exploitation of migrant workers in vulnerable and precarious conditions. The PGA also advocates for better global governance and adherence to human rights protections of migrants.

U.S. Will Attend GFMD for First Time

For the first time, the U.S. State Department will be leading an inter-agency delegation of a dozen government representatives to the GFMD. Assistant Secretary of State Eric Schwartz, heading the delegation, is expected to deliver a speech in New York on Nov. 8, in conjunction with the opening of the GFMD.

Rajah commented, “While we applaud the Obama Administration’s reversal of the previous U.S. government policy of non-participation in international fora such as the GFMD, we are concerned that there is little if any indication that the U.S. will modify it trade and migration policies, which drive the forced displacement of communities and violate the rights of migrants. We will be pushing the U.S. to turn around these policies and end the repressive and inhumane treatment of migrant communities. The U.S. must comply with the international human rights protections of all migrants around the world, including in our own country.”

The GFMD was created in 2006 by the United Nations General Assembly, upon the recommendation of then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. While its mandate seeks to overcome the limitations of strictly national approaches to key migration issues, the GFMD has become a key site for developing migration and development policy at the expense of the rights of migrants and countries in the Global South.

The inaugural GFMD was held in Brussels in 2007, followed by Manila in 2008 and Athens in 2009. The Swiss government is expected to host the GFMD next year.

The PGA: Creating a Global Vision & Action Plan for Migrant Rights

The PGA was jointly created by regional migrant and migrant rights networks from around the world. Recognizing the limitation of the GFMD’s framework approach, it sought to raise the level of broad civil society engagement as key stakeholders in the debate, and more importantly, to promote the central role of human rights as a framework for migration and development.