Support Day Laborers! Counter Protest Anti Immigrant Bigots!!!
author: pro-communtiy, anti-racist
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Anti immigrant folks in PDX this Wednesday! Counter Protest!!!
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[forward widely!!!]
The city of Portland is finally getting on with plans to build a Day Labor Hiring site! Unfortunately reactionary right wing bigot groups are car pooling again up to Portland to condemn progressive actions and to spout their flimsy racist anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Come out to support the Day Labor Center and to denounce the anti-immigrant racist scapegoating!
Mayor Tom Potter and community members plan to create a hire site for day laborers. Read about their plans in the Portland Tribune of July
24:
 http://portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=118522686140313400
The hearing on the proposal will be in front of the Portland City Council,
Wednesday, August 1, at 5:00 p.m. Call the city hall at (503) 823-4000 to be able to testify. Portland City Hall is located at 1221 SW 4th Ave (Jefferson and 4th)
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[this is a leaflet found, written by Sin Fronteras Portland, handed out at the last rally when The Oregonians For Immigration Reform came to Portland. OFIR are the anti immigrant group coming to Portland this Wednesday.]
The Oregonians For Immigration Reform uses fear, hiding behind racist scapegoating to mask the true roots of U.S. Social political and economic problems.
The Oregonians For Immigration Reform base their xenophobic ideas around a simple formula, more people means more money for services. They base their claim on the stereotyping of all undocumented immigrants as working under the table jobs and not paying income taxes, thereby getting a 'free ride'. FACT is only about estimated 120, 000 out of an estimated 12 million undocumented folks work as day laborers under the table. Working as a day laborer is difficult, barely compensated work, that because of xenophobic and white supremacist legislation already on the books, leaves working under the table as a last resort for employment. Unions in the united states have picked up on that it is more useful and consistent with CARING for ALL WORKING PEOPLE to help day laborers organize and fight for better working conditions than to single this minority out and scapegoat them for the problems all working people face.
Oregonians For Immigration Reform also have a skewed idea of how social services are paid for, imagining that everything in society comes from income taxes, or that somehow undocumented folks have some sort of racket
on avoiding gas, property, sales, etc... etc... etc... taxes. Its absurd to put it blunt.
No piece of paper should deem whether someone should have safe and fair working conditions, quality education, sanitation, and health care, housing, etc... All people deserve these things. The United States does not live in scarcity, the fact that the I.C.E. spends nearly 3000 dollars a month to detain one person immediately illustrates the absurdity of this backwards " we have no money" politic. The U.S. Economic system is marred with corruption and exploitative practices, loop holes for the rich and corporations, leaving our communities hurting. Oregon lost more than 60,000 jobs since NAFTA was signed and corporations made record profits.
An basic understanding of neo-liberal economic polices illustrates the cause of migration, social discontent, and worsening social conditions, deteriorating educational facilities, and the decimation of social programs. Not just in Mexico and the global south but in the United States. Resistance to these policies is growing in Latin America, and much like the global finances corporations pilfer, that resistance is crossing borders as well and spreading to the United States. Unions , community groups, social justice campaigns, city hall resolutions, across the country are mobilizing and building popular social movements. We are realizing that we have much more in common with our sisters and brothers in Latin America than we do with CEOs here in the United States.
OFIR's call for assimilationist ideas is the modern day continuation of white supremacist manifest destiny. That Anglo/white ways are the only way to enlightenment and should be held above all other cultural ideas as the norm. This is RACISM point and simple.
OFIR's racist scapegoating adds up if anything as xenophobic band aid rhetoric to very real social problems that have nothing to do with immigrants, or scarcity. There is enough for all of us, more than enough. Reactionary ideas are dangerous. People must see through the lies and fears these people base themselves on.
There are no illegal men, women or children. Poverty, lack of health care, lack of job security, lack of prioritizing funding for children, privatization, neo-liberal economic polices, white supremacy and patriarchy...all of these things perpetuated by U.S. capitalist and imperialist policies are the real crimes.
SIN FRONTERAS PORTLAND
 pdxsinfronteras@riseup.net
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**No piece of paper should deem whether someone should have safe and fair working conditions, quality education, sanitation, and health care, housing, etc... All people deserve these things
**I.C.E. spends nearly 3000 dollars a month to detain one person
**Oregon lost more than 60,000 jobs since NAFTA was signed and corporations made record profits
**We have much more in common with our sisters and brothers in Latin America than we do with CEOs here in the United States.
**There are no illegal men, women or children. Poverty, lack of health care, lack of job security, lack of prioritizing funding for children, privatization, neo-liberal economic polices, white supremacy and patriarchy...all of these things perpetuated by U.S. capitalist and imperialist policies are the real crimes.