arizona passes racist law attacking immigrants

Kasandra Dalton reports on the situation in the United States as Arizona passes a law allowing the arbitrary arrest of immigrants

Last week the state legislature in Arizona and the Republican governor Jan Brewer signed the anti-immigrant law SB 1070. This is essentially a racist law to criminalise immigration and creates the legal power for police to arrest people upon mere suspicion of illegal immigration status.

There has been significant political fallout from this quasi-fascist decisión on the part of the Arizona Republicans. Even Barack Obama, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, the Bishop of Los Angeles and Shakira have protested and made their views public.

please, stop deceiving our community

Colombian lawyer Miguel Puerto looks at the mainstream parties’ attitude to Latinos in Britain, undocumented immigrants and in particular the Liberal Democrat ‘amnesty’ proposal.

London Citizens and the Lib Dems are for a very restricted 'amnesty'

The electoral campaign in this, our second country, is in full swing and with this comes further deceit, manipulation and taking advantage of our community. It is saddening, sickening, that our community is seen as up for auction to the highest bidder, on offer to the political parties who always combine against the interests of our community, as they have done historically.

These parties – all of them – have passed laws and directives in the House of Commons and European Parliament to hunt down and punish  immigrants ‘without papers’, holding back and closing the door on legal immigration and thus denying the existence of political refugees.

UBS worker detained by UK borders agency

by Chris Kane

We have received shocking news that Lancaster Cleaning Services, a contractor for Union Bank of Switzerland, has once again colluded with the UK Borders Agency against cleaners. On this occasion Lancaster, having taken over the contract at UBS, has provided the Borders Agency with information on one of their workers who had just left their employment.  Acting on this information the worker’s home was raided and he is being held at an as yet unknown location.

The only crime this worker has committed is coming to this country and getting a job!  This is not first time Lancaster and cleaning companies have utilised the Borders Agency to attack migrant workers and attempt to intimidate others from organising to improve their working conditions. Deportations have taken place at SOAS and Willis specifically against union organised workers. UNITE activist Alberto Durango was arrested at the behest of Lancaster Cleaning company. This is however the first time it has been used by Lancaster’s in connection with the contract at UBS contract.

migrant women on hunger strike at yarl’s wood

by Victoria Thompson

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre was opened in 2001 and is the main detention centre for families and children. Run by a private firm, Serco Group plc who also manufacture nuclear weaponry, it has 405 bed spaces, and at any time scores of young children are detained within the grey prison walls. Yarl’s Wood has courted controversy since its opening, with hunger strikes, riots and even suicide attempts commonplace amongst the prisoners.

Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire is a prison for immigrants

Several investigations into the detention centre have concluded that the prison is “not safe” on a basic health and safety level, as well as the site of sexual and racist intimidation and violence.

why does unite employ ISS at its HQ?

A number of migrant cleaners employed by cowboy cleaning contractor ISS in the City of London have approached The Commune, concerned about the fact that their own union UNITE has its offices cleaned by… ISS.

Well known for terrible conditions and sacking workers who tried to organise on the London Underground and elsewhere, ISS was also complicit in the immigration raid and deportation of SOAS campus cleaners last June.

One such cleaner in the City wrote to UNITE asking why they employ ISS, and received this remarkable response…

immigration in britain today: london forum, 22nd march

The Commune’s next London forum is from 7pm on Monday 22nd March at the Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, near Old Street. Click here for leaflet.

The economic crisis has worsened anti-immigrant sentiment in British society. Not only has it created a breeding ground for the BNP and English Defence League to win support, but establishment racism is also on the up.

english defence league march on parliament

by Amanda Latimer

On March 6th, the fascists marched on Parliament.  More disturbing than their actual presence or message, however, was the fact that someone let them in the front door.

The English Defence League’s (EDL) march on Parliament was called with three days’ notice to welcome the visit of the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders to the House of Lords.  Somewhere between the “free speech” placards carried by the 200 or so EDL supporters, the predictable mire of nationalist and fascist salutes and equally predictable targets of their racism, was a feeling that, as one anti-fascist demonstrator put it, “This shouldn’t be happening.”  The march flew in the face of a long-standing rule that no one can march on Parliament whilst it is in session; a rule that was not simply broken by the EDL, but accommodated by the State.  What kind of message does it send when a far-right group is not only given permission for such an extraordinary action, but when their right to “deliver their message” is accompanied by a police presence in the hundreds, also convened over three short days?

migrant workers’ strike in france

by Antoine Boulangé

6,000 undocumented migrant workers, on strike since 12th October 2009, are bravely continuing their unprecedented struggle against the government in spite of very difficult circumstances.

Their determination is exemplary, faced with a government on the assault – propagating racism and Islamophobia – and a right-wing adding to their list of racist and ‘pro-security’ provocations such as the law against the burqa, the denial of asylum rights to 123 Kurds arrested in Corsica, and racist statements by the ministers for immigration and families.

resistance to racism in italy

by Marina Falbo

Rosarno is a sleepy town situated in the the southern Italian region of Calabria. But on 7th January it was catapulted to the centre of a media frenzy when hundreds of African migrant workers rampaged through the town, setting fire to rubbish bins and conducting a street battle with the police. The riot was sparked after a gratuitous attack against the 26 year old Ayiva Saibou. When the local police told the immigrants they could not help the injured man, within hours as many as 2,000 immigrants marched on Rosarno’s town hall before being driven back by police.

The day after, protests continued. The protestors carried placards saying “We are not animals”, calling attention to their desperate situation. They marched to the town hall where they demanded to see a government representative. The riots provoked an unseen backlash against the immigrants in a mix of xenophobia, mafia and economic hardship. Local residents set up a barricade near a meeting place for the immigrants.

burn the borders

by the Collective for Solidarity with the accused of Vincennes

On 25th-27th January the Paris High Court will try ten people for the fire at the Vincennes immigrant detention centre. Our solidarity must look at the full measure of the situation: demanding freedom for those on trial, yes, but also freedom of movement and residency.

The largest detention centre in France burnt on June 22nd 2008. From June 2008 to June 2009, some ten former detainees have been arrested and imprisoned – most of them for nearly one year – in preventive jail. They are charged with “damage”, “voluntary destruction of the buildings of the Vincennes administrative detention centre”, and/or “collective aggression against a police officer, without causing incapacity for work for more than eight days”.

border controls: we are all “illegals”!

by Ricardo Noronha

From the Moroccan coast to Poland, from Cyprus to The Canaries, every day thousands of people attempt to abandon their countries of origin and reach the European continent. The whole way along their route they are confronted with the same repressive strategy: the same barriers and persecution, the same racism and violence.

One might think that these people who cross oceans, deserts and mountains, hostile territories and foreign countries, are victims of misunderstandings or police excesses: but this is not the case. The immigrants who try and reach Europe are held back by practices, objectives and measures ingrained at the very heart of European institutions and approved by individuals elected by European citizens. They are confronted with a type of inhumane violence and repression which we would tend to associate with dictatorial states, but all this has been decided “democratically”.

no borders newsletter ‘movement’ issue 1

The first issue of ‘Movement’, a monthly newsletter covering the latest updates from the No Borders Network and beyond has been published. We are re-launching the No Borders Newsletter in an attempt to create a more regular and broad based publication. Click image below for PDF.

The issue features articles on the clearing of the ‘Jungle’ migrants’ camps in Calais, removals to war zones like Iraq and Sri Lanka, migrant workers’ actions and resistance to deportations.

question time: did the straw man really slay the griffin?

by Adam Ford

Viewers of the BBC’s Question Time were confronted by many truly repellent outbursts from the platform on 22nd October. The screening – which had generated massive controversy due to the debut appearance of British National Party chairman Nick Griffin – often broke out into shouting and boos as the audience expressed their disgust with Griffin’s barely disguised racism and homophobia. But a significant early comment by another panellist went almost unnoticed amidst all the fury: Jack Straw claimed that Labour and the other ‘mainstream’ parties’ have a “moral compass”. In this article I will examine that claim, look at the ideological role of Question Time, and criticise the tactics of Unite Against Fascism and the Socialist Workers Party.

(Photo by Mike Fleming)

Since it began in 1979, Question Time has been a centrepiece of the BBC’s political coverage. During that time, it has played a significant role in framing the national policy debate, in determining which views are (and which are not) acceptable as ‘mainstream’. When the programme began, in the early days of Margaret Thatcher’s first Conservative government, there were four panellists – one each from Conservatives, Labour and the Liberals (as the third party were known at the time). The fourth panellist would be a prominent ‘talking head’, often from the fields of academia, the media or religion. In 1999, the panel was expanded to five guests, and the show experimented with ‘outsider’ figures, such as comedians, but this was quickly ditched.

‘get this racist jack straw off the bbc’…?

Leaflet for tonight’s demo against Nick Griffin appearing on Question Time

– Labour and Tory anti-fascism is a con
– Support migrant-worker organising: no borders
– For workers’ action against racist propaganda

The recent row over the British National Party’s appearance on BBC Question Time displays the level of anger at the rise of the far-right party. All of us have turned out today because we oppose Nick Griffin’s racist effort to blame immigrants for all of society’s ills, including the economic crisis, and do not want his rubbish to gain more of an audience. But given the level of establishment racism, a campaign to defend immigrants must not stop at mere anti-BNPism, nor can the growth of the far-right be stopped by appealing to the existing authorities to silence them.