Dreaming Ahead: Immigrant Rights in the Post-Durban, Post-9/11 Era
By Arnoldo García

The following is excerpted from a new report soon to be published by the National Network. The report shares the reflections and experiences of immigrant and refugee rights organizers who traveled to Durban South Africa this last September, to participate in the UN World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia. The report also serves as a resource guide for continued intervention and participation at the international level on issues of migration.

The new report reaffirms the importance of how we need to work and think locally and globally for migrant rights and other social and economic justice issues. At a time when the response to terrorism is eroding the still-limited platform of human rights for migrants in the U.S. and in other countries, the report reminds us that we need to link our national movements, strive for “greater equality between South and North countries,” and continue to “dream ahead” for the better world that we know is possible.

Immigrant rights had an unprecedented year of advances and setbacks in 2001. First, migrant rights received unprecedented international recognition at the World Conference against Racism, concluding September 8, in Durban, South Africa. Three days later, they suffered a terrible blow as the 9/11 terrorist attacks unleashed a violent backlash against immigrants. Now, “immigrant” and “immigration” are synonymous with “terrorist” and “terrorism.” The hope of Durban waned as the United States enacted xenophobic and racist anti-terrorist laws and restrictive immigration policies at the center of its “war against terrorism.”

Before 9/11, immigrant communities, especially immigrants of color and the undocumented, lived, dreamed, and worked precariously under a “constitutional crisis.” Violations of their First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights were rampant. Thousands were jailed indefinitely or deported without due process. Immigrants of color routinely experienced racial, nationality, class, religious, and other discriminatory treatment from landlords, employers, citizen groups, public and private agencies, and police.

The political reaction and economic recession triggered by 9/11 disproportionately hurt immigrants and people of color. Collaboration between federal, INS, and local police on immigration law enforcement began to be institutionalized. Official racial, ethnic, and religious profiling spiraled out of control.

Worldwide some 150 million migrants systematically endure racist and xenophobic abuse at the hands of governments and citizens in countries not their own. Migrants and refugees are compelled to cross international borders fleeing political persecution, terrorism, ethnic and racial strife, and unsustainable economic development. The root causes of involuntary migration lie in globalization – socio-economic and political restructuring that maximizes corporate investments and profits at the expense of communities. Now that the U.S. “war against terrorism” has gone global, 9/11 also promises to swell the ranks of migrants and refugees.

Until WCAR
Over the last two decades, the deepening domination of North countries over South countries has increasingly blurred the differences between refugees and migrants. Forced displacement, whether by tanks or banks, results in communities being forced to abandon their homes; only some end up crossing international borders to survive. While no small matter, refugees have universally recognized rights and protections. However, migrants – who often flee the same economic or political conditions that create refugees – do not have universally recognized rights or protections – until WCAR.

Through WCAR, migrant and refugee rights groups accomplished at least three key goals.

• First, migrant and refugee rights groups, working together for the first time in a strategic global alliance, laid new groundwork linking issues and conditions addressing the nature of racism against migrants and refugees.

Representing organizations from the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Africa, the Migrant and Refugee Caucus collectively developed comprehensive analyses and shared their diverse experiences, lobbying governments on specific recommendations. However reluctantly, governments reaffirmed existing refugee protections in the WCAR’s documents as part of eradicating racism, and acknowledged that xenophobia against refugees and migrants is a major source of contemporary racism.

• Second, a shared migrant and refugee rights agenda began taking shape.

WCAR provided the space to deepen shared human rights and racial justice analyses, consolidating the role of migrant and refugee rights organizations in the nascent world movement against racism.

• And, third, migrant and refugee rights groups began establishing new relationships and alliances nationally and internationally with racial justice and human rights organizations.

This was decisive to linking race, migration, xenophobia, and globalization as key to understanding the nature of the fight against anti-immigrant racism and the potential components of a global migrant rights agenda.

Dreaming Ahead
The U.S. government is simultaneously eroding civil and constitutional rights and restructuring immigration enforcement and services as part of its “war against terrorism.” The proposed Homeland Security Department will fight terrorism and control immigration. Instead of amnesty for the undocumented or addressing the inequities driving migration, deportation and draconian immigration measures are proposed.

Demanding just, sustainable development that would not disrupt communities and displace peoples, requires a new relationship between South and North countries and where labor and capital mobility have equal rights. Such a relationship could create options so that people could decide where they live, work, worship, study or play without coercion. This is the radical dream shared by different peoples of color, cultures, nationalities, religions, and continents who want to thrive in a community of communities. This was the rising dream coming back from Durban. This was the challenge before September 11, 2001; now it is a more urgent dream than ever.

Arnoldo García is the editor of Network News and NNIRR’s World Conference Project Director.