“Presente”….
“Presente.” One by one, as their names are called by an officer standing in the front of a courtroom in Tucson, brown people with chained feet and hands stand and respond, “Presente.”
They are migrants who have been caught and detained crossing the border without documents. They are brought to Tucson to Homeland Security’s newest innovation: “Operation Streamline”, a procedure, which enables mass trials for those caught crossing the U.S./Mexico border. At Operation Streamline, migrants face criminal proceedings, which result not only in detention or deportation, but time served in prison for the criminal charge of “entry without inspection.”
They stand and proclaim “Presente” in-front of the white male judge. A powerful statement, if we consider the deeper context of the history that has led to the current criminalization of migrants crossing the Southwest border. They ARE “presente,” and for many of them, their ancestors have always been “ presente” on this land. Before there was any English or Spanish spoken here, before there was any Mexico or United States, or any border dividing the two and criminalizing them, their people were “presente” aqui.
We are two recent Lang alumni of the Global Studies department, who focused our senior thesis work on the battle for ethnic studies in Tucson, Arizona and undocumented youth activism. We spent the summer supporting three different movements in Arizona, because we recognized it as a place in which our work on indigeneity, colonization, the border and migration deeply intersect. Our experience confirmed the critical need to offer education on indigenous issues and to recognize and support undocumented students at The New School.
We first volunteered for No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes’ (NMD), a migrant support organization stationed in the desert near the border. We dropped food and water along frequently-crossed migrant trails. NMD’s presence is extremely important as it not only aids to save lives of those crossing, but also takes a stand against the militarization of the area by the border patrol who have retaliated against NMD’s presence by slashing water bottles left for those crossing.
Yet, the enforcement of “America” doesn’t end at the border. We traveled seventy miles north to Tucson where Xikano communities face another central feature of U.S. colonization in the United States: the banning of indigenous history on the basis that it is anti-American. The legislation of HB2281 reads verbatim that, “ All classes are forbidden from ‘promoting the overthrow of the United States Government’ (HB 2281, 2010). On December 30, 2010, Tom Horne, the Arizona Attorney General, declared that TUSDs’ La Raza studies programs were in violation of the new course restrictions.
The MAS program in Tucson taught the history of colonization in the Southwest, and engaged students to question how current systematic repression and criminalization of the Xikano community arises from this legacy. It taught the correlation between race, ethnicity, power and privilege within society. They did this by encouraging students to critically examine facets of our society, such as how the “drop out” or also referred to as “push out” rate of Xikano youth connects with the high incarceration rate of the population.
We supported the student youth and educators fighting to reinstate the MAS program, by joining “Tucson Freedom Summer”; a congregation of activists from across the country that gathered to support the movement for ethnic studies. We engaged in actions, rallies and community dialogues with teachers and the youth/student coalition, “UNIDOS”.
UNIDOS recently traveled to support those living on the Dine reservation in Northern AZ. On the Dine (Navajo) Reservation, elders are resisting forced relocation by uranium and coal mining corporations. This summer we also traveled to stay on the Dine Reservation to support an elder by helping him herd sheep and harvest corn fields.
We learned that through forcing the elders and their families off of their land, entire generations are being stripped of their cultural identities. They cannot maintain their traditional practices of an agricultural and sheep herding subsistence and spiritual practice, which both necessitate maintaining a relationship with the land they are being forced away from.
The violence endured by those with undocumented status who cross the imagined border into Arizona, the Xikano community in Tucson fighting for the right to learn about their history and culture, and the Dine elders in Black Mesa resisting forced relocation relay different aspects of the same colonial domination. As a result of the colonial conquest of Turtle Island, and its renaming “The United States”, indigenous populations have been an occupied people on this land for over five hundred years. Those in the state of Arizona are not only denied equality as immigrants, and as people of indigenous ancestry, but they are denied the right to learn this history of conquest and racist domination. These students are screaming that they ARE here, “presente” and that they must be heard.
As students of The Global Migration Group (GMG) and members of The New School, which lies on occupied Algonquin (“Lenape”) and Iroquois land, we must see those whose presence, whose histories, whose realities have for so long been denied. The New School must respond to the reality that there is an unquestionable lack of course offerings relating to indigenous issues in both North and South America, and the South Pacific at The New School. There is also a great need for classes which teach indigenous knowledge, philosophy and politics as a lens, and as a valid perspective through which to view the world, not just as an object to be learned about.
Currently, undocumented students do not have access to state and federal financial aid and this makes college unreachable for many students across the nation. Last year, President David Van Zandt publicly supported the NY state DREAM Act which would open state funding to undocumented students. Yet, The New School has not taken steps to establish a scholarship of its own.
As an institution, we have failed to recognize the indigeneity of this land, indigenous worldviews and perspectives of history, and certain immigration statuses in this country. Continuing to do so will not only impact those struggling for the right to exist in Arizona, but all those who are present yet made invisible by the practices of racism, colonization and domination across the globe.
In a report issued by the Conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation in June 2007, which under those conditions to pass an Immigration Reform package will cost over $2.6 Trillion dollars to taxpayers. As an addition the 50 states must follow the rulings of the court to pay for any illegal aliens medical care treatment, the education for their children to k-12, welfare payments for every child, low income housing if they have 3 or 4 extra babies, cash payments and receive without paying into the system over $2.4 Billion dollars annually for child tax credits, even if the child doesn’t reside in the U.S. This is an abomination for every hard working citizen and legal resident and now Obama has admitted a Comprehensive Immigration Reform that will devastate our ailing economy. A conservative amount paid out by just states is somewhere around $113 billion dollars, but this was the projection some years back. Every year it strains the treasuries of each state, so citizens and legal residents must ask themselves what is being taken from their pocket books for taxes to pay for this indignation. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION drastically and financially effects all Americans—no matter who you are—Hispanic, Black, Caucasian, Asian if you are legally here, as you are paying for the illegal aliens and all those who broke into this nation.
Accentuated enforcement: In 1986, the U.S. approved amnesty to some three million illegal immigrants as a quid pro quo for an exclusion on the future hiring of illegal immigrants. The amnesty was granted, but the prohibition on the future hiring of illegal immigrants was never enforced as it is seemingly today. This would repeat the same mistake; mass amnesty if it should be permitted, however the border and employment enforcement provisions of the act would be as likely hollow and will probably never be enforced. In fact funding was cut off to enforce these laws, so that businesses were not held accountable for hiring unauthorized labor. To avoid repeating the mistakes of 1986, enforcement must come first.
Do not grant amnesty: Amnesty is unjust and would be very expensive. Obama Proponents will dispute that there is no feasible alternative to giving citizenship to all the illegal immigrants in the U.S. But serious, phased enforcement of a ban on hiring illegal immigrants would cause many, if not most, illegal immigrants to voluntarily leave the U.S. and return to their native countries. This would definitely be the “Cause and Effect” of the “LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT” nationally known to the public as mandatory E-Verify to minimize economic interference. It could be possible to give some current illegal immigrants temporary work visas, especially in the field of farming, but carefully regulated and with the unequivocal stipulation that they must return home when these visas run out. Such temporary visas would not grant access to welfare, Social Security, Medicare, or citizenship. The farmers should be wholly responsible and not the U.S. taxpayer? If necessary, the exiting illegal workers could be replaced by legitimate temporary workers or by permanent immigrants who have never violated U.S. laws and have been inspected by agents of the government. For the record an estimate of a million legal immigrants are admitted each year, but we should recognize in this global market we should allow a steady stream of the paramount top list of Scientists, Technology, Engineering and mathematicians (STEM WORKERS) who would be highly beneficial to Americas future. What we don’t need are more people with no qualification, no education and adding to our own poverty.
Close the “BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ” loophole: Under current law, when U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants turn 21, they can petition the government to grant their illegal immigrant parents legal permanent residence, thereby conferring an automatic path to welfare entitlements and citizenship upon the parents (hence the term “anchor baby”). The popular concept of “birthright citizenship”-that anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen-is historically and legally imprecise and ought to be corrected by Congress. Despite the consequences, this backdoor path to citizenship for illegal immigrant parents should be closed as this original law was protect slaves after the Civil War. Pregnant mothers, who smuggle their own children into the United States, are the instigators of what has become President Obama’s “Dream Act.” Then again, it’s not the children’s fault, the blame falls like a ton of bricks on the parents as they have caused the massive monetary problems for decades. Learn everything you want to know about the outrageous costs to Taxpayers, the cycle of illegal immigration that never ends and what you the taxpayer voter can restrain this silent invasion at NumbersUSA, Tea Party.org, American Patrol and Judicial Watch.org.