<div>On 12/20/06, boddi satva <<a href="mailto:lbo.boddi@gmail.com">lbo.boddi@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Here's why: for immigrants crimes are not just crimes. There are the criminal sanctions and procedures, but then there are the immigration consequences. For example, misdemeanor possession of marijuana in Oregon is something for which you get the equivalent of a speeding ticket. For immigration purposes, it's a felony.</blockquote><div> I am not sure I am the best mediator for this thread but I want to draw out a few things that I think might put boddi's case into perspective.  It seems to me that boddi is saying that the "legal reality" has created a social reality.  The social reality is that we have created a group of people who are now, and will potentially always be, in a legal nether-land.  It is a new "status" that are called "illegals."  This status relation to the law can potentially become a new segregated "caste" similar to the color-caste of segregated working class African-Americans for much of the 20th century.  Now it does us, nor the people in this potential social class-caste, no good to simply ignore this new  status, that is created by law, that our society designates as an "illegal" status.  I don't think that boddi is necessarily expressing himself with felicity here, but I also don't think that he is a nativist, or is for exclusivity of U.S. citizenship.  I think he wants us to recognize a legally invented reality that is quickly becoming a structural part of our class structure.  He may call this reality "internal colonialism" or "imported colonialism" but this too is not for racist reasons, but because he is stretching for a way to represent the fact that one possible "end" of this "permanent illegal status" is a change in class-caste structure.  The ideal situation for capitalists is a caste of "illegals" who they won't be legally penalized for employing, and who they can get rid of at any moment.  If this is true, then the first thing to do is to recognized that this caste of "illegals" is in the making, and not to hide from ourselves what the creation of this legal status has done to the social system.  Also, it is part of our job to get others to notice that this caste of illegals is in the making, including people who are oppressed by it.  This is what I think that boddi is insisting upon. In truth in U.S. history this kind of thing has gone on with immigrants in one way or another but mostly regionally and with much more potential for change of status.  But just consider that one possible end-point for where we are going is the creation of a permanent illegal status, and a new caste of people roughly in the same relation to the working classes as African-Americans were 50 years ago.  If we do reach that point then we will have reached a state in which the only possible way out is a form of "abolitionism", not of the "illegals" but of the "illegal status."  What I am saying is that there comes a point where there is no room for reform (there is still is) and then the only chance to break-through the "status" of permanent second class (non) citizenship, is to call for immediate full citizenship rights for all people who work here.  </div> </div>I hope boddi doesn't mind my attempt to articulate what he is getting at here, but I think that an understanding of what underlies his thought might be helpful.  Personally, I won't wait for the (future) need for the "ultimate" slogan and simply say that one of our goals should be for full citizenship rights for all people working here.  Jerry Monaco