Anarchists initiate immigrant solidarity march to commemorate the deaths of three youths

Phoenix area anarchists kicked off the new year by calling for a march in the arts district of downtown Phoenix for the monthly "First Friday" artwalk. The call was in response to the deaths of two immigrant youths who were found in a canal after fleeing from a Maricopa County Sheriff Deputy near Gila Bend, and the murder of a third youth who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent while climbing the border wall in Nogales. Nearly two dozen anarchists, anti-authoritarians, and O'odham and Dine' indigenous comrades, all assembled for this unpermitted manifestation of outrage. This also being a First Friday (FF) our small group attracted the attention and participation of many in the crowds wandering between galleries and bars, as well as from the youth who often come down to FF to get out of the house, check out some art, and to flirt and meet other kids hanging out.

The march took to the streets with banners and statements against the "poliMigra," prisons, all borders and police. We shouted into the night "Out of the galleries, into the streets!" Naturally we garnered the attention of the police, not a special distinction as on any given FF they maintain a very heavy presence, even though a demonstration like this has probably not occurred in sometime, aside from an organic confrontation with the authorities a couple years back. After a few shoving matches with the Phoenix cops, the march was pushed to the sidewalks, but after losing the police, the march returned to moving in and out of the streets, throwing traffic barricades into street, and making a detour into one of the more notoriously yuppie galleries downtown. We lost some of our numbers when we marched down to the Suns game, but we also shook our police tail and were able to march in the streets unimpeded (aside from the occasional police vehicle that would pull up, use their bullhorn to tell people to get off the streets, and then drive off). We encountered the most reactionary and nationalistic sentiment of the night outside the Suns game, but we shook it off and mobbed onto a light rail train for a free ride back to the arts district.

So, what does this mean for the future? The mainstream movement voices were once again silent during this latest outrage, the "human rights movement" raised a number of eye brows around town after their total absence in any forum when young Danny Rodriguez was murdered by Phoenix cop Richard Chrisman in his mother's trailer last October. The high profile killing of this young man came amid a shit storm of corruption and brutality allegations against the Phoenix police department, specifically the notorious South Mountain precinct, but perhaps the mainstream hacks were too concerned about upsetting their friends in the mayor's office to actually hold one consistent political position. Or maybe someone should have told them there's money to be made from the non-profit industrial complex in organizing against police violence, that seems to get their attention.

What I saw in the streets the night of this march is a sight becoming increasingly common in Phoenix, a gathering of indigenous, latin@, and anarchist people ready to take to the streets and to move beyond the boundaries put forth by the mainstream immigrant movement's leadership, as well as the laws of the authorities. I believe that in these alliances lay the future for a broad based movement of resistance, built upon mutual respect and participation in confronting this system of death, repression, and incarceration until there is total freedom for all.

Below is the text of the flier handed out during the solidarity march, along with a couple more images from this procession.

Where are the voices of disbelief and anger now that SB1070 is law? Where have the crowds gone who were in the streets in the spring and summer? This writing is addressed to you who weep with clenched fists when another immigrant is found dead trekking across the desert, shot dead by a border patrol agent, or drowned in a canal after fleeing the authorities. This is to you, who tires of a political movement that demands your patience for a political solution all the while this O'odham (the indigenous people of this region) land is militarized by the border patrol, building more new checkpoints, and nothing ever gets better.

Why now, why without the responsible, reasonable movement leadership? Because it’s come to this: Three children, presumed immigrants by the state, found dead in a canal on Christmas eve, just one week before that five other immigrant brothers and sisters were discovered by the authorities, forced to conceal themselves in cow manure. Just yesterday a 17 year old Nogales resident was shot dead by a border guard on the U.S. side after climbing the border fence. Where is the outcry from the human rights activists, or even the mainstream immigrant groups?

http://www.azcentral.com/community/pinal/articles/2010/12/16/20101216pinal-county-arrests-abrk.html

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/12/24/20101224canal1224.html

http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2011/01/07/news/doc4d272fc9733a6461195366.txt

This is a call to all those who oppose the tyranny of law and order, this cold business of institutions that place freedom and dignity underfoot to preserve power and control for the few. There will be people in the streets tonight, decrying this sick order that places property, law, and the will of a few over the lives, dreams, and freedom of human beings.

Another night of wandering the sidewalks of downtown admiring the art that lampoons Arpaio, or defends immigrants, and then home, content to believe that a moral duty has been exercised, justice against the oppressors has been served in Phoenix this First Friday. Of course we appreciate this art, but to pretend that the representation of a struggle is in fact a struggle is lunacy!

There is active solidarity, or there is complacency! Observers of art, become participants in your own life! Join us tonight as we take the streets to stand with all those murdered by the laws and institutions on this stolen indigenous land.

Release them all! Stop jailing migrants!

This is the second text printed on the fliers that PCWC members distributed on the May Day/May 2nd immigrant solidarity march in Phoenix. This piece was by our good friend and comrade Sallydarity, "Release them all! Stop jailing migrants!" is yet another valuable contribution of hers to the understanding of the situation facing immigrants in Maricopa County.



by Sallydarity
http://chaparralrespectsnoborders.blogspot.com

We've heard the stories: Undocumented immigrants are getting kidnapped and held for ransom, and perhaps found in drop houses if the police get a tip. The migrants are vulnerable targets because they have been criminalized by the state. Something we don't hear too much about is that the biggest armed gang in the country is kidnapping migrants and holding them against their will. They're not holding them in drop houses; these uniformed kidnappers are handcuffing the migrants and incarcerating them in jails and detention centers.

If we feel that it is tragic when traffickers do it, why do we let the police get away with it? Whether they are "rescued" from traffickers, stopped while driving in one of Arpaio's sweeps, or confronted with the ridiculous charge of conspiracy to smuggle themselves, migrants get caught up in the US prison system for no other reason but crossing a man-made line in the sand.

Arpaio, taking pleasure in humiliating brown-skinned people and getting cheers from racists, stands out as the villain of Maricopa County. But the other police departments are acting in similar, more quiet ways. While migrants and activists wait to hear what the federal government will do to save us from Sheriff Joe, the Department of Homeland Security is holding hundreds of thousands of people- triple the number of people in detention just ten years ago- in detention centers. If they end 287g they will only replace it with something more tasteful; something called "Secure Communities" which will target our "criminal alien" population. Meanwhile our legislature is coming up with new ways to criminalize migrants.

Migrants have been criminalized for who they are and where they are from- not for doing harm. If anything is harmful, it's punishing people for trying to survive the results of colonialism, capitalism, and globalization (which most US citizens enjoy the benefits of). When it is nearly impossible to make a living and nearly impossible to migrate legally, anyone would travel to where they have more opportunities. Why then would advocates for immigrants' rights legitimize the arrests of undocumented immigrants by complaining only about the "legal" people who get caught up in the racial profiling sweeps? We mustn't buy into the efforts to divide us! We need to bring down the walls between us, as well as the physical walls- the border walls, the jail walls, and the walls of the detention centers.

It should be a crime to imprison people for trying to survive!

Immigrants get one camp. But which one is for you?

I want you to look at these two photos, especially if you're white. This one is from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The Nazis built the Sachsenhausen camp outside Berlin to hold primarily political prisoners. Generally, that meant anyone who didn't agree with the Nazi regime and had the nerve to say or do something about it, but not exclusively so. Sometimes just having the wrong associations was enough. Like being in a union, or in a particular political party. Or helping Jews. Further east lay the death camps, where Jewish prisoners, held for no other reason than their ethnicity and their convenience as a scapegoat for Germany's economic situation, and dressed almost the exact same way were murdered by the millions behind electrified fences.


The next photo is from today's Arizona Republic and shows Mexican migrants being transferred into segregated housing at Sheriff Joe Arpaio's tent city, where they will be housed behind electrified fences in a special section just for them. One camp for brown-skinned workers from south of the border and another for everyone else.


The photos bear a striking resemblance, don't they? Indeed, the comparisons couldn't be more clear. Singled out by race and ethnicity and marched under armed fascist guard to linger behind fences in concentration camps awaiting an uncertain future.

This is a point that I feel must be particularly aimed at white folks, so I want them to listen up in as I address this to them. If you think that you can support cameras on the borders without them coming North and targeting you, you're wrong. If you think that you can support eVerify and other government controls on work without it coming back to regulate your work and whether you can have any, think again. If you think that you can support a crackdown on one kind of worker, immigrant or migrant workers, without setting yourself up for an attack on all other workers, you're wrong. And if you think you can support putting one kind of people behind electrified fences without making a reservation for yourself, think again.

Because the infrastructure for one is just as useful against the other. The police state you have supported in exchange for the relative immunity of your white skin privilege can just as easily take your rights away. Those SWAT teams that round up immigrants can just as easily kick in your door. The camps you support for brown folks can just as easily house you. Right now making its way through the Congress is National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645. This bill will set up what are euphemistically known as "Emergency Centers", otherwise known as concentration camps to be used in the case of emergency.

Well, have you looked around lately? I think we're in a emergency. Who do you think is going to be in those camps? You didn't complain about those billions going to Bank of America, did you? I hope not! You didn't complain about the war in Iraq, did you? I hope not! Otherwise those camps may be in your future, or the future of someone you know and love.

Did you happen to catch the article in the Phoenix Business Journal in December about how the Phoenix Police are getting ready to put down insurrections in the Valley, in cooperation with the military. That's not for immigrants, my friend. That's for in case you and your friends get sick of the banker bailout or the foreclosures or whatever else the capitalist elite have in store for you. Maybe you think you deserve something other than slave wages and decide to organize at work with some of your fellow workers. Did you happen to see how the government has created NorthCom and deployed veteran units from Iraq to put down similar uprisings across the country? What do you think those riots are going to be about? What will those insurrectionaries be demanding? Work? Food? Respect? Might you be one of them when the food runs out? Or when a member of your family is unjustly beaten or shot by the police?

You see, white people have made a major mistake. They have operated under the assumption that the privileges that they receive, petty though they might be in comparison to those enjoyed by the wealthy capitalist elite, were worth turning a blind eye to the crackdown on people of color. In fact, they've ignored it for a long time.

And for a long time they did get special benefits. I know they don't like to hear this, but it's true. White folks got higher wages, less exposure to the police and prisons, better schools and better job security. And taking those benefits created a relationship between the rich and powerful and white folks in general. A bastard cross-class alliance that has stood in the way of true progress in this country for quite some time. But now the piper has to be paid and with the economy crashing down all around us, and with the government threatening martial law over the banker bailout, and with the infrastructure now in place to execute it, their days of exemption and special treatment may just be over. And they let it happen.

No, they may not wind up having to speak Spanish in one of Arpaio's segregated immigrant concentration camps. But they might wind up in Sachsenhausen. And their fate will be the same. It is in everyone's best interest to prevent the construction of concentration camps and the dry run for a police state that they allow. Don't you see it? Arpaio is just doing the warm up. Immigrants are the appetizer, my friend, but you are the main course.

Austrian prisoners, marked with triangles and identifying patches, in the Dachau concentration camp. Germany, April 1938.