>There are really good, rational, humane reasons not to have open
>borders. As weak as our immigration system is, at least it keeps down
>the number of desperate people who would come here and be taken
>hideous advantage of.
I thought you said the system was designed for the inflow of illegal labor? Do you think the present system of border patrol is good, rational and humane? I can't follow your argument. Perhaps you are too afraid to say explicitly what you are actually proposing.
> Citizenship is important. It's the concept on
>whichall other rights are built.
Is it? All rights? Should it be? Refugees have no rights? Why shouldn't today's illegal immigrants have the same avenues to citizenship that illegal European immigrants once had? Isn't the historical difference racist? And isn't counseling people not to come because they won't get the citizenship rights which illegal European labor once got playing into American racism or rather its imported colonial treatment of mostly Mexican labor?
> And since there is no such thing as
>"world" citizenship, we on the left should not encourage people simply
>to throw their right away.
Given the circulation of people across the border, most workers know perfectly well what they are throwing away upon illegal entry. So what do you say to them? You are an idiot for not privileging political rights above all else? What a comfort you must be for those you release from prison!
Also, see book below. Also I'll reread Etienne Balibar's We The People of Europe.
No One is Illegal by Mike Davis and Justin Akers Chacon
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No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border With photographs by Julian Cardona "Is immigration really a 'national crisis'? Justin Akers Chacón and Mike Davis attack the question by revealing the disturbing, centuries-old context for the cross-border working-class, and the resurgence of reactionary anti-immigrant politics and racist vigilante violence. No One Is Illegal powerfully argues that the borders themselves are barriers to imagining real social justice. An urgent, important must-read." --Jeff Chang, author Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation "[The phrase] 'no human being is illegal' was coined by Bert Corona in the 1960s. Forty years later, Mike Davis and Justin Akers Chacón tell us the real story about the immigrant worker heroes." --Nativo V. Lopez, president, Mexican American Political Association In No One Is Illegal Mike Davis and Justin Akers Chacón expose the racism of anti-immigration vigilantes and put a human face on the immigrants who daily risk their lives to cross the border to work in the United States. Countering the mounting chorus of anti-immigrant voices, No One Is Illegal debunks the leading ideas behind the often violent right-wing backlash against immigrants, revealing their deep roots in U.S. history, and documents the new civil rights movement that has mounted protests around the country to demand justice and dignity for immigrants. No One Is Illegal features moving, evocative photos from award-winning photographer Julián Cardona. Justin Akers Chacón is a professor of U.S. History and Chicano Studies in San Diego, California. He has contributed to the International Socialist Review and the book Immigration: Opposing Viewpoints. Mike Davis is a historian, activist, and author of many books, including City of Quartz, The Monster at Our Door, and Planet of Slums. Davis teaches in the Department of History at the University of California at Irvine. Julián Cardona was born in 1960 in Zacatecas, Mexico, and migrated to the border city of Juárez with his family as a small child. He worked as a technician in the maquiladora industry before becoming a photojournalist in 1993. In 2004, Cardona received a Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. Haymarket Books 2006, paperback, isbn 1931859353, 328 pages
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