Please Respond to this article against the Transborder Tool and Dominguez:
http://www.noozhawk.com/conklin_wayman/article/120509_mark_cromer_an_app_for_betrayal/
I responded with the following Post:
Undocumented migrants work in, for example, meat packing plants, garment industries, migrant labor industries. THESE ARE NOT JOBS THAT AMERICANS WANT TO WORK! But, how easily we forget in times of economic downturn….
Furthermore, targeting undocumented migrants as scapegoats for the nation’s problems during times of economic downturn is nothing new—recall immigration policies during the Dust Bowl, Operation Wetback. How easily we forget our history when the profit margins are in decline…
The truth is that undocumented labor is directly recruited by corporations in the United States, yet the media never reports on this fact.
Undocumented labor is largely used in the construction industry, garment industry, and to clean up after natural disasters in the United States—would you want these jobs when you could make more collecting unemployment?
The truth is Americans do not want the jobs that undocumented people work. Recall the Postville Iowa immigration raid: homeless people from Texas wouldn’t even work in the meatpacking plants doing the jobs that undocumented workers performed daily. At a cheaper rate. In dangerous conditions. For long hours. Without breaks.
Another example: after Hurricane Katrina New Orleans experienced an influx of Latino migrants. Why? The Latinos, largely undocumented, cleaned up/are still cleaning up after the horrible natural disaster. Yet, these laborers often remain faceless, nameless.
We value labor, but not the bodies that are responsible for that labor.
You may wonder who paid for these people to clean up New Orleans? The federal government hires subcontractors through corporations such as Halliburton. These subcontractors then hire undocumented labor—an inexpensive and easily exploitable work force.
Like Professor Dominguez, I value human life over political scare tactics and nationalist rhetoric. Spreading undue fear through this type of journalism should be recognized as a form of domestic terrorism. The tool saves lives. I find it disturbing that capitalist rhetoric has so permeated Mark Cromer’s subconscious that he overlooks facts, the value of human lives, and historical president. I believe we should be thanking Dominguez for his efforts and bravery to fight for his ideals amid so much fear mongering ahistorical “journalism.”
We must first and foremost assert that the purpose of the Transborder Immigrant Tool is to save lives. Every year hundreds if not thousands of people die crossing the heavily policed border zone—many of these mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers, daughters, sons—were directly recruited via billboards or subcontractors to work in the United States.
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Yay Hannah! I went and posted this comment, we'll see if they run it:
ReplyDeleteThousands of people die crossing the border every year. It is land that originally belonged to them, stolen through conquest. Now, while policies like NAFTA facilitate the free flow of money across borders to enrich the few, the masses left impoverished are prevented by police, fences, barbed wire, guns, and U.S. racism from crossing those same borders in search of a livable life. As U.S. policies have destroyed the economies of many Latin American countries, we should not be surprised when the refugees of empire return to the heart of empire. Dominguez is a hero, and his team's new app will indeed save lives. Cromer can sit from his place of relative comfort spewing hate all he wants. How many lives has he saved? None - in fact, his xenophobic hate-mongering has probably cost people their lives, in the form of hate crimes, deportations, and starved & dehydrated bodies in the desert.
As a former resident (and taxpayer) of the state of California, and as the child of an alumna of the UC system, I am very pleased to think some of my tax dollars went to Dominguez's team. California's prison population is booming, and it had always distressed me to think that my money was going to support that system, instead of to California's underfunded school system. So, Mr. Cromer - stop speaking in our names. Many people celebrate the bravery of this act of electronic civil disobedience and find that it is you, Mr. Cromer, who is the "tool" - a tool of racism and a tool of corporate interests. Look in the mirror and stop spewing your hate at these upstanding global citizens.