------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 8, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
PEOPLE RISE UP AGAINST IMMIGRATION RAIDS
By Adrian Garcia Los Angeles
As California's Border Patrol was conducting a racist campaign of raids specifically targeting Latino communities, hundreds of undocumented workers, members of immigrant-rights organizations, churches and anti- war groups took to the streets of Los Angeles June 26 to demand an immediate end to the raids.
Local news station KCAL reported that between June 1 and June 16 approximately 7,000 undocumented workers had been detained and/or deported. Immi grant families find themselves in a state of terror. People are keeping their kids away from school, opting not to go to work and staying away from shopping centers for fear of being rounded up.
"Bush racista, eres terrorista" ("Racist Bush, you are a terrorist")
reverberated through the militant crowd marching down Broadway Blvd. to
the approval of the predominantly Latin@ onlookers, some of whom joined
the march.Organizers of the day's event--Latino Movement USA, Hermandad Mexicana and the ANSWER coalition--called for a cessation of the raids, amnesty for all undocumented workers and their right to obtain driver's licenses.
Sako Sefiani, an organizer for the Inter national Action Center and a Work ers World Party mem ber, clas si fied the recent raids as "racial profiling, pure and simple." Sefiani made the connection between the war against working people at home and the U.S. imperialist campaign against working people abroad.
"The people of Falluja [Iraq] fought back against U.S. occupation, and we must unite and give our solidarity to the Iraqi resistance, immigrants who face round-ups and to Black people, who face police beatings in this country," proclaimed Sefiani.
Hwan Sa Kim of Korean Americans for Peace and Justice spoke about the need to fight for the rights of all immigrants who find themselves under attack.
Muna Coobtee of the Free Palestine Alliance addressed the relentless and illegal assault against the people of Palestine by the state of Israel and presented the similarities in the treatment of immigrants in this country with the treatment of Palestinians in their occupied homeland.
Juan Jose Gutierrez, coordinator of Latino Movement USA, urged people to stay involved in the struggle. He asked the crowd to be part of the 10th- anniversary demonstration commemorating the historic struggle against the reactionary Proposition 187 that was aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from receiving medical care and schooling.
Another militant demonstration of 5,000 protestors marched against the Border Patrol's raids in the working class neighborhood of Maywood, Calif., June 27. These protests send a clear message to the bosses in Washington that the people will unite and take their struggle to the streets until justice for all workers and oppressed people is achieved.
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