Written by Justin Akers Chacon (professor of US History and Chicano Studies in San Diego) and Mike Davis (teaches in the Department of History at the University of California at Irvine), No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-Mexico Border is a sharp rebuke against anti-immigration vigilantism, denouncing the often violent right-wing backlash against immigrants and striving to put a human face upon the men and women who cross America's borders. Chapters survey white, anti-immigrant violence in California history from the inception of the Ku Klux Klan, the "Yellow Peril", and anti-Filipino riots to modern times, with an especially critical eye turned toward the Minutemen. Also scrutinized is the history of how dominant corporate interests and the wealthiest members of America have used immigration policy to control labor - such as the bracero program, an individualized contract that subjects a guest worker to deportation at the employer's relative discretion; such "guest worker" programs actually give agribusiness employers more control over their workers than they would have over undocumented workers, who can migrate to construction other fields and thus place some pressure upon agribusiness to raise its poverty-level wages. A scholarly, heavily researched yet harsh wake-up call to American immigration policy injustice.

This new book written by Justin Akers Chacon and Mike Davis addresses the issue of immigrant-directed violence and multiple other aspects of the immigration story in these United States. Published by Haymarket Press of Chicago, No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-Mexico Border is, among other things, another excellent history from this press of the US told from a popular working class perspective. Black Liberation and Socialism and Subterranean Fire before it, No One Is Illegal provides a refreshing and educational take on the bitter and often brutal history of the US and the people's fight against its excesses.
The text opens with an 80-page history of western vigilantism by author and historian Mike Davis. This brief survey covers several cases of farmworkers' attempts to get a fair wage and decent working conditions and the murderous reaction to those attempts. Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Okies, Mexicans and others each in their turn became the whipping boys and girls of the powerful agriculture and banking interests in California. Without shame, these interests hired goon squads and fascist sympathizers to beat, harass, and occasionally murder the organizers and participants of farmworkers' actions. Official unions like the AFL maintained their whiteness and encouraged racial prejudice amongst its members. Partially because of this, the New Deal purposely ignored the farmworkers when it provided protections that the rest of the workforce in the United States now take for granted. It is Davis' contention that the vigilante man--as he calls these extralegal forces--are back again in the form of groups like the Minutemen.

The remainder of the book is written by Justin Akers Chacon. He picks up where Mike Davis left off. Chacon., a Chicano Studies and US History professor in San Diego, California, is an anti-immigrant activist and organizer in the volatile city of San Diego. He presents an economic history and study of the historically unequal relationship between the United States and Mexico, all of it in relation to the question of northward migration. Although Chacon explores and explains the situation in detail and in relation to the workings of international capital in specific periods, he puts forth early on that the underlying reason that people in Mexico are leaving their homes to find work in North America is because: "According to a study produced by the International Labor Organization, the wages of the Mexican working class fell faster than in any other nation in Latin America over the last few decades.(p. 13)" This fact does not even begin to tell the story of the peasantry, who have seen their crops devalued again and again, thanks to US agribusiness domination of farming in Mexico, along with the massive imports of cheap staples from the north after the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The story Chacon relates is one of struggle. Within the broader struggle of the working people against the bosses, there is the uglier but no less real story of the struggle between workers of different national origins; even between the Chicano and the Mexican or the Mexican and the Salvadoran. Not only diversionary, these internal struggles have only made it easier for agribusiness and other corporate entities to keep all of our wages lower. The documentation that the author provides in this regard--anecdotal and statistical--proves this latter point only too well. From the beginnings of immigrant labor in the US to today's reality where immigrants are not only portrayed as economic competitors but as potential "terrorists" as well, the manipulation of the native-born worker by his bosses has served the system only too well. Despite this, there are multiple instances of workers uniting across national and racial lines in strikes and other job-related actions. It is Chacon and Davis' contention (and mine) that the May Day 2006 strikes and marches are but the latest example of the possibilities of working class unity.
Chacon completes his section of the book by bringing it full circle to the fight against anti-immigrant and racist vigilantism. His target is the so-called Minutemen. While rightly lampooning their organization as being mostly composed of a bunch of weekend warriors, he nevertheless takes this group and the phenomenon they represent seriously. Directly challenging the Minutemen's claims that they are not racist, Chacon points out the propaganda of fear that this group uses: telling their target audience that Latino immigration is "a silent Trojan Horse invasion that is eroding our culture." Drawing the link between this idea of a superior culture and the rhetoric of white supremacists in the United States, Chacon makes it clear that the Minutemen's agenda is a supremacist agenda combined with a superficial economic analysis that blames non native-born workers for the economic uncertainties many US workers find themselves in thanks to the latest stage of monopoly capitalism--capitalist globalization (or neoliberalism, which is what Chacon and many others call this stage.) He cites the presence of known racists in the organization and the attendance of KKK members and neo-nazis at Minutemen events as further proof of the group's racist underpinnings.
Unmentioned in Chacon's discussion of the Minutemen's economic analysis is that elements in the United Farm Workers took a similar view of illegal migration. Indeed, the view that it was the individual fault of undocumented workers that everyone else's wages were lower convinced the UFW to lead a 1969 march to the US-Mexican border to protest illegal immigration. Furthermore, UFW members in Arizona actually patrolled the border in that state, chasing undocumented migrants back into Mexico. Chacon does mention this aspect of the UFW briefly, but attibutes the union's stance against illegals to the leadership's desire to appease supporters on the right wing of the Democratic Party. Any discussion of the superficiality of an economic analysis that blames the individual worker forced to migrate because of the machinations of capital does not occur in his comments on Cesar Chavez and the UFW.
On a similar note, it seems worth mentioning that today's UFW conitinues to lean towards legislation that restricts immigration. Like Samuel Gompers and other labor leaders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the UFW (along with the SEIU and UNITE) went on record supporting the so-called Senate compromise bill, known colloquially as Hegel-Martinez. Like immigrant rights organizer Nativo Lopez told an audience in New York last month,
How is it possible that those three unions bolted from the AFL-CIO to create the new progressive Change to Win coalition, and they accepted the premise that contract labor in massive form could exist in the United States, with those unions be the beneficiaries by cutting deals with Corporate America for yellow-dog collective bargaining agreements, in which they would receive dues money from those contract laborers. (Socialist Worker 6/30/2006)
Yet, even Lopez seems to have gotten part of his history wrong when he continued by stating that Cesar Chavez was rolling over in his grave because of these unions' selling out. Lopez was correct, however, when he pointed out that the current "compromise" bills offered by Democrats in Congress are bills written by and for corporate America. He was also correct in urging his listeners to combat such compromises.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this book is its internationalism. Chacon and Davis operate with the understanding that the working class in each nation is not a national entity as much as it is a global one. This is especially the case in today's world of capitalist globalization and the ever-increasing movement of capital across borders. With this movement of capital has come an even greater movement of workers. National borders are only reinforced to control wages of workers of all nationalities and to create and maintain divisions within the international working class. Just like imperial war, immigration control is a tool of the imperial elites in their pursuit of domination and profit. If the immigrant rights movement wants to be truly successful, Chacin reminds us that it must keep this perception as its basis. Its essential demand must be the eradication of borders--especially those borders that restrict humans from crossing them. Reading No One Is Illegal is a great place to begin understanding the fundamental nature of this demand.

I just finished reading No One is Illegal by Justin Akers Chacon and Mike Davis. They conclusion they arrive at is that: "we must reject the language, legitimacy, and limitations of "illegality" and tear down the borders between us. No one is Illegal!" But the way they arrive there is from the perspective of socialists. The authors see the issue of immigration from a labor struggle standpoint. They discuss at length the history of the racism, xenophobia and class struggles that have influenced the United State's immigration policy throughout history. They see almost all events through the lens of labor fighting for rights against a united front of capitalists who thwart them at every turn. They only touch briefly on the topic of organized labors historic opposition to open immigration since it does not fit properly with the theme of the book. The books main message is: "Borders serve only to divide people and reinforce the power of capital over all workers." I agree with that sentiment but would add that borders also reinforce the power of governments over people.
The book is an important contribution to the argument for open borders and will help to convince labor socialists that less restriction on the migration of labor is a positive thing. It has some very good historical data about the treatment of migrants in the west that I have not seen anywhere else.
The book is a good read with a serious labor bias that has to be discounted to be able to appreciate the valid arguments contained in it.

The book made me ponder these questions, wish I had hoped it would answer: Can anyone oppose illegal immigration and NOT be racist, or violent? Can there be a surplus of low wage workers (illegal and legal) in the U.S. that end up competing for less and less slave-level jobs? (See California Cauldron '98 by Clark). Does the country really need more and more undocumented 'taxpayers' to fund the Pentagon and our proto-fascist government? Are there any costs to having more immigrants enter the U.S.? How have 12 million undocumented impacted the American environment and, in some cases, strapped municipal services? What has California's experience with educating the childen of the undocumented been? How does the average American worker (say in New Orleans), unionized or not, feel about our government cutting a deal with Mexico for easier (legal)access to American employment opportunities? How do poor Americans view illegal immigration? Are failing labor unions in the U.S. drooling to get the union dues of the millions here who the Unions fantasize will join their ranks? (note: I'm a union member). I'd prefer that these questions get answered with on-the-ground social science research conducted in key cities throughout the country experiencing high immigration rates. Let's get those political economy shades off the academic eyes and take a closer look. This book failed. The book Mexifornia failed as well. We need something better.