Undocumented immigrants are the first victims of the economic storm, in Europe as well as in the United States, and every deepening of the recession reduces their chances of survival. In this country alone, just in the month of January, 598,000 people lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate has been calculated at over 10 percent.
Most of these workers are looking for any kind of job, and they are already beginning to compete among themselves for poorly paid work. In small towns the situation is worse, since the inhabitants see undocumented immigrants as an obstacle to their own survival.
And this is only the beginning. According to economist Andrei Kobiakov, “this global crisis will last possibly until 2015.” If that is the case, we can well imagine the social discontent in which the supposedly civilized world, seduced by money, will be submerged. Immigrants in Europe, legal residents as well as the undocumented, are already suffering from the increase of xenophobia on the part of both individual citizens and of governments, which are imposing draconian laws against them. In Switzerland, for example, the government launched a program of persecution against immigrants.
An interesting response to this, however, is that undocumented immigrants themselves, who number about 300,000, succeeded in forming “The Organization of Those Without Papers” and have begun occupying churches and universities, demanding equal rights and the abolition of the anti-immigrant laws.
Swiss religious figures are supporting the undocumented, invoking Deuteronomy 10: 17-18: “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.”
Despite the pressures and threats of forcible removal, the immigrants have already succeeded in having an interview with representatives of the government, and progressives have formed a movement, “Right to Stay for All,” to support them.
Undocumented immigrants live their lives in accordance with the postulates of capitalism: personal survival depends on oneself – a task that is difficult enough. In New York, every morning, at different street corners around the city, scores of men and women wait for work, which becomes scarcer with each passing day.
Therefore, there is no alternative but to organize on the basis of a communal philosophy: today for you, tomorrow for me. If it becomes necessary, they must form popular movements in which everyone contributes equally, providing clothing, shelter, etc. The crisis will last a long time; immigration reform is not on Barack Obama's agenda and there will need to be a push for it to happen.
