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UNITED STATES - Obama’s Mockery to Undocumented Immigrants

Ilka Oliva Corado

Monday 11 July 2016, posted by Ilka Oliva Corado

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During his visit to Cuba, Obama had the nerve to tell Raul Castro that the Cuban diaspora in the United States suffered from homesickness, trying with this to blame the Cuban Revolution for the immigration; he did not mention the Cuban Adjustment Act which the United States uses to punch the revolution below the belt with the aim to erase all the beauty of that poem.

In another very distant place away from Cuba, is the Latin American immigration, specifically the one from the Northern Triangle in Central America and Mexico, where thousands are forced to leave their country and seek in the United States the basic resources for their survival.

All this as a result of the US interference in the region and the corruption of neoliberal governments who do not invest in social development programs. Getting into a little more historical context that forced immigration is the residue of the Condor Plan, which has been catastrophic for developing countries hit by such capitalist machine. It is a deterioration growing at an accelerated pace.

The nonstop looting by transnational corporations and the signing of agreements that benefit the same oligarchies has intensified the immigration of Latin Americans to the United States -immigrants in transit who only seek shelter and food. Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Mexicans who risk their life on the border, in the mountains, the deserts, and in the bloody waters of the Rio Grande. Unidentified bodies, insignificant human beings for the authorities that toss them as garbage bags in the pits of clandestine cemeteries in Texas.

Countless lives marked by the tragedy of forced immigration, silent voices due to the agony of post-border depression. The burden of memories that hurt, the torment of the nightmares that plunge into the unconscious in the few hours of sleep. Labor exploitation, the mockery of the employer that takes advantage of their status in the country. The system’s mockery, the remittances that have to be sent on time. The up and downs of opposed emotions. The anguish of deportation. ¿Will Obama think about the nostalgia and agony of Latin American migrants who are not Cubans?

The mockery of the government from the country of origin continues to force the immigration of thousands of children, adolescents and adults who see no other way out than to abandon the nest to jump into the void, and if they are lucky, to survive in the diaspora that tear off the soul to anyone.

A country of arrival -the United States that was never the land of the American Dream, becomes the country of residence. To these immigrants Obama does not offer something similar to the Cuban Adjustment Act that could well be the Latin American Adjustment Act, much less a substantial immigration reform that would benefit the more than 25 million undocumented immigrants who are living in the United States.

Obama, while trying to get the Latino vote, offered this immigration reform twice knowing that he would not fulfill his promise, not only that, he also became the president that has deported more undocumented immigrants in the country’s history. A double standard attitude dishonoring his African ancestors’ descendants who in the fight for Civil and Human Rights gave their all.

During his second term he washed his hands off with more chutzpah and signed the Executive Action promising labor benefits to five million undocumented immigrants, knowing it was all a farce -a deception commensurate to the effrontery of a black president who is black jus for the sake of being black. An Afro descendant akin to the white doctrines of the Ku Klux Klan.

The fact the Supreme Court denied the Executive Action is not surprising; it was a ruse since Obama projected it as an option for the sole purpose of moving the masses toward Hillary Clinton in the presidential elections, repeating the strategy that the Democratic Party used with him.

So guilty is he for lying, as are the five million undocumented immigrants who accepted the crumbs that excluded the vast majority, the treacherous blow comes from Obama as well as the Dreamers who only sought benefits for their parents and not for everyone.

Where are the benefits for the millions of laborers who are here dying in the solitude of labor exploitation and have their families back in their home countries? Do they not have rights? Why the Dreamers did not raise their voice for them and not only for their parents? Why these Dreamers did not create a movement based in the mass demonstrations of 10 years ago that will involve everybody?

Why the mediocrity of an agreement that benefits only their own?

Why those “immigrants’ rights defenders” have not raised their voice for the more than 25 million and instead applauded the Executive Action for some? Why did they remain silent when Obama signed it and stopped fighting for Immigration Reform? Where are now those characters, why they have not packed the streets questioning the false promise of Obama? Why are they now devoting all their effort to mobilize the masses toward Hillary Clinton and not for Sanders when it was the time for doing it so? ¿Double Standards?

They accepted the crumbs and then didn’t get anything, let’s hope they learn the lesson and realize that the struggles for social equality, for legalization and labor benefits, are conducted for the good of the vast majority and not for some. They should not pretend that by acting in this way the US system will listen to them, it rather treats them with contempt, something they deserve by the injustice of leaving out millions.

We are a community and we must stand up in one voice, in one fight, benefits for all, without privileges for a few.

Here they go now, like cattle to the slaughterhouse, with their plan B, that is, to vote for Hillary Clinton, who two years ago agreed to the mass deportations of children and adolescents who came into the US in 2014, fleeing government violence, hunger and oppression by the governments of their home countries.

Hopefully one day the mass will wake up, the multitude, the millions of undocumented workers, and they will take to the streets and do not go home until they have achieved a Comprehensive Immigration Reform for everyone. And they must no trust the words of presidential candidates.

Among other things, it should be pointed out that most of the Latino community who can vote in the US is that who came into the country by plane and with a visa, it is the Latin American middle class who will vote for Hillary Clinton, not out concern for undocumented workers, but instead thinking in the continuity of US interference in Latin America. That is part of the Latino community who is against Cuba and progressive governments. In their vote there is also double standards and indifference.

There is also indifference in the perfumed “social activists and immigrants’ defenders” who use the undocumented immigrants, and traitors as the Dreamers, only to achieve personal gain. Many of them are directly involved in the Clinton campaign, expecting, in case she wins, to get a job in the government. Most of these guys hate Cuba and call for a US invasion of the island; they approve the continued interference in Latin America.

These opportunistic flock they don’t have any idea of consciousness, identity, loyalty and humanity. And they are the guides, the mentors -arming and disarming and manipulating the movements of undocumented migrants in the country. It is not surprise then that the US system is constantly mocking the undocumented immigrants.

And what about those Latin Americans who support the Trump candidacy precisely because of his stance against undocumented immigration? There is no greater xenophobia in the United States than that of the Latin American with documents that belittles, humiliates and exploits the undocumented. Is it because of the big fear of seeing his self-mirrored image?


@ilkaolivacorado

contacto[AT]cronicasdeunainquilina.comCrónicas de una Inquilina

Translated by Marvin Najarro

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