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]

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.