File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1996/96-02-marxism/96-02-18.000, message 585


Date: Sat, 17 Feb 96 2:19:40 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: Border Controls -Reply






	
		Mr. Rose,




	Legal immigrants can be protected by labor laws, unions, and the
vote.  Illegal immigrants are outside of the domain of civil society, and
therefore have the potential to undermine (although certainly not by intent)
social evolution in both their home countries and their resident countries.  


	Illegal immigrants put themselves in a position of near-ultimate
exploitability.  In effect, they are the scabs of civil society (again, not
that they should be held personally responsible for this).  Unless they can
become a force for revolution strong enough to overpower the relative ease
with which they can be dismissed in the resident country, they can undermine
wages and the struggle for economic justice.  Unrestricted immigrants (under
an open-border policy) have the potential to overwhelm the civil government
mechanisms, and thus they would become de facto illegals.  


	I hope it's completely clear that I sympathize with the plight of the
illegal.  Their misery is the cry of people abandoned by their more affluent
comrades in the 1st world proletariat.  Possibly, only we can save them. 
Certainly, we must immediately do what we can to energize their struggle, as
globalization of capital threatens to make every worker an illegal in his own
land.  Probably, however, we will have to help them on their side of the
border, just as we can only help scabs who are on our side of the picket line.
 






		peace,




			boddhisatva






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