Statement of those arrested at Border Patrol Headquarters at Davis-Monthan Air Force Bace in Tucson, Arizona
The development of the border wall has lead to desecration of our ancestors graves, it has divided our communities and prevents us from accessing sacred places.Troops and paramilitary law enforcement, detention camps, check points, and citizenship verification are not a solution to migration. We have existed here long before these imposed borders, my elders inform us that we always honored freedom of movement. Why are our communities and the daily deaths at the border ignored? The impacts of border militarization are constantly made invisible in the media, the popular culture of this country and even the mainstream immigrants rights movement which has often pushed for “reform” that means further militarization of the border, which means increased suffering for our communities.
Indigenous communities such as the O’odham, the Pascua Yaqui, Laipan Apache, Kickapoo, and Cocopah along the US/Mexico border have been terrorized with laws and practices like SB1070 for decades. Indigenous people along the border have been forced by border patrol to carry and provide proof of tribal membership when moving across their traditional lands that have been bisected by this imposed border; a border that has been extremely damaging to the cultural and spiritual practices of these communities. Many people are not able to journey to sacred sites because the communities where people live are on the opposite side of the border from these sites. Since the creation of the current U.S./Mexico border, 45 O’odham villages on or near the border have been completely depopulated.<
On this day people who are indigenous to Arizona join with migrants who are indigenous to other parts of the Western Hemisphere in demanding a return to traditional indigenous value of freedom of movement for all people. Prior to the colonization by European nations (spaniards, english, french) and the establishment of the european settler state known as the United States and the artificial borders it and other european inspired nation states have imposed; indigenous people migrated, traveled and traded with each other without regard to artificial black lines drawn on maps. U.S. immigration policies dehumanize and criminalize people simply because which side of these artificial lines they were born on. White settlers whose ancestors have only been here at most for a few hundred years have imposed these policies of terror and death on “immigrants” whose ancestors have lived in this hemisphere for tens of thousands of years, for time immemorial.
In addition, the migration that the U.S. government is attempting to stop is driven more than anything else by the economic policies of the U.S. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA have severely reduced the ability of Mexicans and others from the global south to sustain themselves by permitting corporations to extract huge amounts of wealth and resources from these countries into the U.S. This has led to millions of people risking the terror and death that so many face to cross into the U.S. looking for ways to better support their families. Thousand of women, men, children and elders have died crossing just in the last decade. If the U.S. really wants to reduce migration it should end its policies of exploitation and wealth extraction targeted at the global south and instead pursue policies of economic, environmental and social justice for all human beings on the planet, thus reducing the drive to immigrate.
The protestors are demanding:
-An end to border militarization
-The immediate repeal of SB1070 and 287g
-An end to all racial profiling and the criminalization of our communities
-No ethnic cleansing or cultural genocide
-No border patrol encroachment/sweeps on sovereign native land
-No Deportations
-No Raids
-No ID-verification
-No Checkpoints
-Yes to immediate and unconditional regularization (“legalization”) of all people
-Yes to human rights
-Yes to dignity
-Yes to respect
Yes to respecting Indigenous Peoples inherent right of migration
Raúl: A Call to Dream; a Call to Action and Rebellion
This is at a time when our community is the most radicalized and militant it has ever been, yet the most visible/radical element getting all the attention in the mainstream media is the DREAM Movement?! Dang. This begs the question: What’s wrong with the Left? What are we doing wrong? Instead of just critiquing the DREAM, why don’t we ask ourselves why we are allowing this NIGHTMARE called Amerikkka to continue unchallenged? Why are we allowing Border Patrol Pigs to taser, torture, terrorize and assassinate our people? How could it be that we idly sit by continuing our everyday lives uninterrupted as 7 year-old Brisenia Flores and her father are shot to death by White supremacists in Arizona or 14 year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez is shot in the head by an agent in El Paso, Texas??? Why do we allow Arizona to be ground zero for police brutality against Latinos and the site of a quiet GENOCIDE against thousands of our sisters and brothers that have lost their lives crossing the desert—year after year after year??? How could we let this government get away with genocide and terrorism? What’s going on with our movement? Our strategy? Our tactics? Why are we letting this once in a lifetime opportunity to push our revolutionary visions to the forefront of the movement slip through our fingers? Where have our clenched fists gone? Why are we hiding behind our comfort? Where’s our dignity? Where’s our courage? Where is our commitment to our families and our visions of freedom? Whether it’s the DREAM Act or Immigration Reform, WE CANNOT depend or place our hopes on politicians of either party to be persuaded to side with justice or morality. If this is our strategy we will be waiting for a very long time and have lost from the very beginning.Have we forgotten about the legacies of Harriet Tubman? Ricardo Flores Magon? Reies Lopez Tijerina? Assata Shakur? Robert F. Williams? Malcolm X? The Black Panther Party? Loilta Lebron? Silvia Rivera? Comandanta Ramona? If there was ever a moment to build on their legacies, it is now. Lobbying, voter registration drives, vigils and marches are obviously not gonna get us anywhere except backwards… nonviolent civil disobedience actions must continue, but that ain’t gonna get us much further either; not in violent Nazi-zona, not in violent Amerikkka.
Tucson: STATEMENT ON SB 1070 AND BEYOND
We stand for the empowerment of our communities, and our ability to protect ourselves. We stand against racist legislation, including SB 1070. We condemn the attack on ethnic studies, I.C.E. raids, violence against womyn and queer people, the expansion of the prisons, the border wall, and the militarization of our everyday lives.Border militarization and the expansion of law enforcement destroy the earth, harm indigenous communities and create a terror campaign against migrants and communities of color in Arizona and beyond. The new legislation is part of a racist campaign that aims to create a terrorized and criminalized class that is more vulnerable to exploitation. Migrants are blamed for crime, unemployment, and the current economic crisis in order to distract the U.S. public from seeing what is really to blame for this crisis: capitalism—the system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
SB 1070 is a direct attack on our families, friends, neighbors, schools and communities.
SB 1070 is part of a history of colonial occupation. We live in a country founded on slavery, genocide and exploitation. The U.S. took over Native land and, in 1846, waged war against Mexico, established borders and imposed itself over the entire Southwest. SB 1070 comes from this legacy of colonial occupation.
SB 1070 is a symptom of white supremacy. SB 1070 is only the latest attack on people of color that makes Arizona an apartheid police state, where brown-skinned people are politically, legally and economically discriminated against and segregated.
SB 1070 does nothing to address the root causes of migration. U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Money-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. Not only do they consume and exploit land, water, petroleum, and laborers (i.e., human beings), but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive. If policymakers were serious about stopping “illegal immigration,” they would end capitalist exploitation and stop their military “interventions” abroad.
SB 1070 is the product of a system that oppresses people not only for being undocumented or non-white, but also for being poor, young, womyn, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer...
Demands:
* STOP APARTHEID LEGISLATION IN ARIZONA
* STOP RACIAL PROFILING AND POLICE STATE TERROR
* STOP THE MILITARIZATION OF THE BORDER AND OUR COMMUNITIES
* STOP THE RAIDS AND DEPORTATIONS
* WE WANT COMMUNITY SAFETY!
* WE WANT HEALTHY FAMILIES!
* WE WANT TO LIVE IN PEACE!
* WE WANT AUTONOMY!
The Calm Before the Storm….An Anarchist Perspective on Challenging the Violence of SB 1070.
Addressing the militarization of the O’odham border has become one of Arizona Anarchists main focuses this year. From the forming of the Diné, O’odham, anarchist/anti-authoritarian Bloc, to the recent Border Patrol lock-down we refuse to allow the invisibleness of Indigenous issue to continue. As you read this you can know for sure that there is a BP officer on the Tohono O’odham reservation looking for someone or something to target. The Tohono O’odham often have their houses raided by masked BP and homeland security agents. BP harasses elders travelling to sacred ceremonies and school children going to class; they steal the O’odhams horses and have even recently killed an O’odham youth. One of the most appalling facts that cease to see the light of day is how the building of the border literally dug up the bodies of O’odham ancestors. All this recent colonization comes on the back of 500+ years of Indigenous people being under attack. We say fuck that! It’s time to attack.Reflecting on the Zapatistas struggle to the south of us we see one of the most obvious places to attack; that being any of the larger systems of infrastructure. Everyday, the results of NAFTA and “Free” Trade are felt in the bones of the people affected most by those policies.
The Non-Profit Industrial Complex Eats Reform and Spits Out DREAMs
The Non-Profit Industrial Complex is like the Prison Industrial Complex in that despite the name, it is a capitalist model based in struggling for money. While private prisons fight amongst themselves for contracts with the Federal government and cut corners that usually equal abuses against those housed behind concrete and barbed wire, non-profits fight amongst themselves for money given out by corporate tax shelters and cut corners by watering down what should be revolution for reform and the end result is abuse against those whom orgs claim to represent and help in their mission statements. And just like private prisons would rather have rival gangs attack each other and distract from the bigger picture, non-profit organizations, whether on purpose or by default, also engage in divide and conquer politics that serve to dilute struggles rather than strengthen them. Need an example? Just look at the latest beef between some orgs in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform movement and the DREAM Act students...Every day it becomes clearer that the Democratic machine is no more friendly to immigrants and their demands than the Republican party, as under the Obama administration there has been an increase in deportations and detentions. “Common sense reform” has been killed by enforcement first which has become essentially enforcement only and none of the organizations have had the guts to admit that for now, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, in the form we were all expected to accept it, a bill, is dead. Admitting as much could very well mean that the reason for their organizations and budgets (which, full disclosure have paid for advertising here even), is also dead.
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