A DREAM exploited by the Democrats

THANKS TO SocialistWorker.org for another great article on the DREAM Act ("Hijacking the DREAM Act").

I agree that we should support the DREAM ACT by itself, but not as part of the defense appropriations bill.

I remember being at a town hall meeting with DREAM activists here in Los Angeles. Even though I was initially hesitant to support it, they convinced me why I should support the DREAM Act. Their most convincing arguments centered around the DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill.

I saw committed young student leaders who were tired of the established liberals attaching the DREAM Act to comprehensive immigration reform. The latter was increasingly centered on the issue of "enforcement." Many mentioned that they would not support the DREAM Act if it was attached to an enforcement bill.

Now that the DREAM ACT is tied to the defense appropriations bill, I think a similar way of looking at it is necessary. To put it bluntly, the undocumented are victims of the war on terror. Ever since 9/11, Republicans and Democrats have ratcheted up anti-immigrant sentiment in arguing that the militarization of our border is an issue of national defense, which in turn further criminalizes the undocumented.

During the height of the movement against Arizona's anti-immigrant SB 1070, Obama sent thousands of National Guard troops to the border, giving credibility to the backers of SB 1070 who argued that the bill was necessary to safeguard the border from the drug war going on in Mexico. The Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations will fund the National Guard deployments at the border.

On April 2, SocialistWorker.org published an article titled "The government's surge at the border." Among other things, it argues how Obama has used the cover of the drug war to militarize the border. It also explains how U.S. intervention in Mexico has fueled the militarization and violence in that country over the past several years.

The U.S. uses the cover of the drug war to militarize its allies and to suppress popular dissent in those countries. Title X (Sec. 1022) of the DOD appropriations bill reads as follows: "Amends the NDAA for Fiscal Year 1998 to extend through FY2011 DOD authority to expand support for the counter-drug activities of certain foreign governments. Adds Nicaragua to the list of countries authorized to receive such support."

Thus, this bill will fund the ongoing violence in that country, which just recently took the lives of 72 Central and South American immigrants in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

Finally, border enforcement is specified in the congressionally directed spending for this bill. It is titled "Border Security and Defense Systems Research." (For more information, just see the "Press Room" section of the Senate Appropriations Committee Web site.)

What is needed at this time is a discussion that doesn't counterpose immigrant rights to the antiwar movement, but one that understands how those movements can mutually reinforce each other.

In supporting one, we are actually supporting the other, and in going against the DREAM Act in the defense appropriations bill, we are standing against the use of pro-immigrant rhetoric used to support anti-immigrant ends.

Similarly, we need to discuss how this is one of the many betrayals of the Democrats in using activists to further their own political ends, and how we can actually create a movement that is independent of them--and thus can fight on its own demands and not compromise its goals.
Victor Fernandez, Los Angeles