(Congress reconvenes on September 13. In the meantime, this issue should be widely discussed. Please re-post this article. If you would like to publish it, please email me at sallydarity at yahoo dotcom)

Invasion by Birth Canal?

The fourteenth amendment and its opponents’ motivations

by stacy/sallydarity

Russell Pearce, the Arizona Senator who pushed the “Support Our Law Enforcement” immigration bill (known in Arizona as SB 1070), complains about the automatically-given U.S. citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants. “This is an orchestrated effort by [illegal aliens] to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we’ve created,” he huffed.[1]

Doesn’t Pearce’s comment sound eerily similar to that of this Southern legislator, pre-civil rights movement? “In 1958, Mississippi state representative David H. Glass introduced a bill mandating sterilization for any unmarried mother who gave birth to another illegitimate child. Glass explained that his objective was to reduce the number of Black children on welfare: …‘The negro woman, because of child welfare assistance, [is] making it a business, in some cases of giving birth to illegitimate children.’”[2]

Pearce, probably feeling empowered by SB 1070’s semi-success (or at least its public support), is working on a controversial plan to “push for an Arizona bill that would refuse to accept or issue a birth certificate that recognizes citizenship to those born to illegal aliens, unless one parent is a citizen”[3]. Perhaps also inspired by the anti-immigrant fervor, Senators John Kyl and Lindsey Graham are proposing that the U.S. Senate review the Citizenship Clause of the 14th amendment. The idea of withholding citizenship to children born of undocumented parents goes back to 1991 when Elton Gallegly proposed the idea to the California congress, followed by several other unsuccessful attempts.[4]

Birthright citizenship is said to reward illegality and encourage procreation for the purpose of accessing the privileges the U.S. has to offer, such as welfare. The underlying attitudes follow an ongoing pattern of attacks on the reproductive freedom of women of color. This is all part of an effort to contain, exclude, and criminalize undocumented immigrants--specifically women due to their reproductive potential. Appealing to Americans’ sense of being cheated, the topic of welfare has been used politically with hidden racial motives. People of color and immigrants have been criminalized even though immigrants’ draw on public services is insubstantial. The topic of overpopulation draws on white Americans’ fear of being outnumbered or overpowered and has been used to control women’s fertility, especially restricting the reproductive freedom of women of color in the U.S and internationally. The problems of poverty and environment are said to necessitate the containment of certain populations, while in actuality the major perpetrators of these problems seek to limit the self-determination of targeted populations to continue to profit off them and their resources.

Read more...

If for some reason it had not yet been time to really address the concept of citizenship, now is the time. Once congress is back in session, birthright citizenship will be the next hot topic of debate. The 14th amendment gave ex-slaves and their children the citizenship they did not have before, and has since applied to anyone born on US soil (aside from a few cases), including the racist-tizzy-inducing undocumented immigrants' children, called by the derogatory term, "anchor babies".

The focus on birthright citizenship, if it does not succeed in changing the 14th amendment, may have a chance at shifting the debate in the favor of the racists. They not only want to remove all undocumented immigrants from the country, but their children as well. While they claim that their concern is over the law ('Illegal is not a race, it's a crime', Pearce says) as of right now, the so-called "anchor babies" have not committed any crime, yet they are to be ousted as well. The immigrants' rights movement will find it necessary to focus on defending the children of undocumented parents and retreat from the defense of undocumented immigrants themselves. This may look similar to the hierarchy created between the more deserving and the less deserving created by the debate around the Dream Act. We cannot allow them to shift the debate in this way. We need to shift it in the direction of questioning the concept of citizenship and the legitimacy of the country in the first place.

So we must ask, what does citizenship mean? We should especially ask this in the context of the fact that the US is on stolen land. What does it mean for some settlers to seize a bunch of land and declare that they are citizens and the original peoples are not (it took a while for indigenous people to be counted as citizens even after ex-slaves were included), and then continue to do this to many people who are in fact more indigenous to this continent than the settlers are. Not only are they withholding citizenship and the rights and privileges it entails; they are criminalizing most of the folks who reside in the US who are not citizens. This means detention centers, deportation, fear, etc. Citizenship is based on theft, domination, and criminalization.

Certainly there are many of us who are counted as citizens who do not have allegiance to the US government. However, in many ways citizenship is about loyalty to this system. In what ways can we call this into question? This all deserves much more attention and discussion.

Please watch for my article called "Invasion by Birth Canal" which should be posted in the next week or so.

US out of North America!

On ICE, Imprisonment, and White Supremacy - This is a pamphlet that was passed out at the Friday noise demonstration outside the Water St. Jail. We hope to radicalize the dialogue about immigration, and draw lines between the criminalization of migrants and and other marginalized people.

Social Control In Santa Cruz:
ICE, Imprisonment, and White Supremacy

August 2010

In our midst there are humans living in cages: tucked between the San Lorenzo River and Ocean Street over 300 people sit behind bars, serving sentences or awaiting trial. From the drunks in their stupor, caught up on yet another DUI, to the gang members arrested for having the wrong family or tattoos, to the gun-toting killer: our crimes are a product of our society, a response to the everyday violence that capitalism inflicts upon our lives and bodies by the mechanisms of poverty, by the police’s baton, the pesticides in the field and the “accidents” in the factory. Crime and criminals only exist because the law exists to categorize people as such, just like illegal immigration is only a phenomenon because of the existence of nations and borders. To escape the situation we are in we must step back and examine it clearly, and look at the real functions of imprisonment in our society.

Some residents of Santa Cruz have been in an uproar about the supposed crime problem: “Our town is being taken over by illegals!” “If we know who these people are, can’t we just go in their houses and get them?” “How would those anarchists like it if we threw a rock through their windows?” Since the killings of Tyler Tenorio, Carl Reimer, and the May Day property destruction, the police and their allies have needed a scapegoat for their failure to control Santa Cruz and keep out the riff-raff. Of course, the obvious choices were those who the police already wanted locked up: people of color and anarchists. The Santa Cruz Sentinel has only contributed to the hysteria and witchhunt-like atmosphere by publishing misleading articles and pictures of SubRosa collective members. While the death threats seem to be over, the city council has used the riot and recent violence as a justification to fill eight vacant positions in the police force, as well as to begin working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

With neo-nazi and fascist activity in our country on the upswing, we must fight any ICE presence in our area. Immigration control and the militarization of the border are but one more way to divide and conquer the lower classes: racism and fascism go hand in hand. In the guise of national security, the federal government is establishing a system which gives them the ability to detain people of color at will, indefinitely, without access to legal help or medical care. A 2009 article in The Nation reported that ICE has 186 unmarked and unlisted offices they use to detain people, incommunicado. 107 people have died in ICE custody between 2003 and 2009. But we don’t need this proof to know that the whole project of immigration control is fucked. We know it’s just another tool of a white supremacist power structure, another method to control us and keep us in line. We see the effects in our communities, we feel the terror of the situation when ICE is knocking at the doors of friends and family.

Demonstrators use noise to break down barriers; anarchist march held at County Jail in solidarity with prisoners -

SANTA CRUZ - A group of about 40 people stood behind the County Jail for more than an hour Friday night banging on large drums, empty water jugs and other noise makers in a demonstration to show support for prisoners in jail "with or without papers."

Around 6:30 p.m., the group of self-proclaimed anarchists and their supporters marched from San Lorenzo Park to the County Jail in protest of ICE's presence in Santa Cruz and the controversial federal program that checks the immigration status of anyone booked on criminal charges set to launch at the County Jail on Tuesday.

As many as eight sheriff's deputies stood on the jail roof to monitor and film the protesters, but did not interfere with the protest.

The event had a personal connection for Watsonville resident Nayeli Gil, who said she watched a cooperative effort between police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest and deport her undocumented brother seven days ago.

Gil, who was born in Tijuana, said living in the U.S. has delivered an opportunity for a higher education for her. She said her brother was trying better himself as well.

"What they are doing is disrespecting people's rights; it's rude and unfair," Gil said. "It's frustrating. He was trying to work for his family. They're making our lives miserable."

Anti-SB1070 graffiti popping up in downtown Phoenix -

PHOENIX - Arizona's border battle is leaving its mark on downtown Phoenix, but not in a good way.

"Usually people, when they see graffiti, they think of crime or a run down area," said Manager of Alta Phoenix Lofts Chiara Elie.

Within the last week, downtown Phoenix has become a spot for anti SB 1070 tagging, which has residents in Alta Phoenix Lofts upset.

12 arrested in protest outside Phoenix jail -