Arizona Proposal for ASGP Resolution on Immigration
The Green Party recognizes that immigration is a fundamental issue in our rapidly globalizing world. Under trade agreements such as NAFTA, the flow of goods and capital across international borders has been liberalized while the flow of human beings, ie. labor, has not. This contradiction serves to protect the profits of transnational corporations, and its consequences are profoundly negative.
The Green Party recognizes that the governments of the United States and its partners in trade are taking increasingly extreme measures to enforce its prohibitions against human movement. The U.S. border with Mexico has been militarized at great human, environmental, and moral cost. In the fiscal year 1999-2000, more than 400 people died attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Others have been brutalized (including such as atrocities as kidnapping, robbery, rape, and beating) by coyotes, vigilantes, and the U.S. Border Patrol, over whom there is little oversight.
The rationalizations for the United States' radical immigration policies range from protection of U.S. workers to fighting the war on drugs to outright racism. The Green Party rejects these rationalizations and advocates the following:
1. AMNESTY for immigrants currently working in the United States that lack INS authorization to be here or work here. The Green Party recognizes that, in the past, BRACERO or GUEST-WORKER programs have served to facilitate the exploitation of immigrant labor and could lead to mass deportations and further exploitation in the future. The Green Party opposes any BRACERO or GUEST-WORKER program that is created without the equal participation of human rights organizations and labor unions.
2. PROTECTION OF LABOR RIGHTS. The Green Party believes that employers in the U.S. should not be allowed to use the threat of deportation to depress working conditions for immigrants, which in turn depresses the conditions for all laborers.
The Green Party supports the establishment of independent labor unions both in the United States and in sending countries to achieve an international living wage and to discourage the relocation of transnational corporations. The Green Party opposes secretly negotiated trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) .
The Green party advocates that the congress of the United States pass legislation amending NAFTA and requiring any transnational corporation based in the U.S. or having substantial sales in the U.S., to pay a living wage to all its employees and to abide by, at a minimum, U.S. environmental, labor, and safety laws. The Green Party further demands that all future trade negotiations be held in public and that they include labor and citizens' groups affected by resultant trade agreements.
The Green Party further recognizes that undocumented immigrants have paid billions of dollars into the U.S. Social Security and I.R.S. income-tax withholding systems for which they are receiving no benefits. These contributions should be refunded.
3. DEMILITARIZATION of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Green Party recognizes that the now-defunct Berlin Wall is a clear example of the injustice caused by the forcible restriction of human movement. The Green Party opposes the build-up of Joint Task Force-6, the involvement of the National Guard, and the construction of walls, high-powered spotlights, and extensive bladed areas at the border.
The Green Party opposes Operations "Hold the Line", "Safeguard", "Gatekeeper", "Rio Grande", "X Plan" or any other strategy that intentionally or knowingly forces immigrants into desert areas where it is clearly foreseeable that significant numbers will die.
Building the wall and forcing immigrants into harsh areas have resulted in the inability of wildlife to travel through its habitats and the trampling, disruption, and destruction of ecosystems both by government agents and immigrants seeking to avoid them.
4. AN END TO THE WAR ON DRUGS. While the Green Party believes that the "War on Drugs" is misguided in its own right, this "war" serves as a convenient but unsupportable excuse for the escalation of current border policies.
5. REPEAL of anti-immigrant provisions in the1996 immigration statutes.
6. PROHIBITION OF RACIAL PROFILING by the INS in enforcement activities within the U.S. and PROHIBITION OF CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY from immigrants during enforcement efforts.
7. REPRIORITIZING FUNDING within the INS away from enforcement and toward increased services.
8. DECRIMINALIZATION of immigration, immigrants, and U.S. citizens who help immigrants survive the harsh conditions on our borders. The Green Party further recognizes that medical examinations and treatment of undocumented immigrants is not only morally and ethically desirable but is also essential to public health in preventing the spread of infectious diseases that may originate in other countries.
9. AN END TO U.S. SUBSIDIES for border militarization in other countries, especially Mexico.
10. INCREASED DIALOGUE between the governments of Mexico and the United States on immigration issues.
11. PROSECUTION of vigilantes who attempt by violent means to take immigration law into their own hands.
