It has been hard to ignore the news reports on all the organized opposition to immigration legislation that would criminalize in the US who are undocumented and anyone who associates with them. Los Angeles and Dallas each had half a million marchers, Chicago 300,000, even little old Grand Rapids had roughly 10,000 people in the streets demanding their rights. The news media has certainly responded to what some are calling the "new civil rights movement," but the coverage has been limited to reporting only the visible actions with no substantive investigation into the complexities of the issue.

First, let's look at the use of this term "illegal" immigrant. I ask you, is someone who is doing work that no one else in the country is willing to do, paying taxes (yes, paying taxes), and sending a high percentage of their wages to family members in their country of origin, engaged in "illegal" behavior? Is it "illegal" to want to improve the status of your family? Is it "illegal" to want to get out of poverty? Some say yes, including the Grand Rapids Press. On the front page of the April 7 edition the Press referred to people organizing against the legislation as illegal and one of the march organizers as an "illegal immigrant." Ok, then what do you call corporations that lobby governments to pass so-called trade policies that increases the likelihood that people will be displaced and forced to travel outside their own countries to find employment? What do you call corporations who charge consumers outrageous gas prices, claiming it is a result of Katrina, then make record profits? What do you call a government that militarily occupies a country, changes its constitution in order to allow foreign ownership of all resources and murder thousands of innocent people?

What is legal and illegal are completely subjective notions and are usually applied in the legal system to benefit those in power. I just finished an excellent book by The Center for Constitutional Rights entitled Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush. The authors are not anti-Bush, but they do believe in the constitution and lay out very clear arguments why what the Bush administration has been doing with the War in Iraq and the domestic spying program are "illegal." When was the last time you heard a reporter say the "illegal" president told Congress blah, blah, blah?

Just before the immigration rights march in Washington DC, a local group, the Michigan Organizing Project (MOP) held a rally outside of Senator Debbie Stabenow's office just off the East Beltline. I rode in one of the 3 buses that transported people to it's destination and organizers encouraged participants to not speak with the news media because 1) it could put them at risk of legal or vigilante action, and 2) the media might ask you a ridiculous question that has nothing to do with why they were protesting. Upon arriving at the Senator's office we learned it was closed up for the day, no doubt in anticipation of a visit from people demanding that Stabenow take a stand on this issue. After numerous attempts to reach Stabenow by phone the MOP organizers then addressed the crowd and the news media. Unconcerned with the reasons for this action, several of the reporters kept asking if the spokesperson and those in attendance were taking these actions because they were "illegal." When the MOP organizer kept addressing the proposed legislation, the reporters showed more interest in the "legal" status of the organizer rather than the issue. The most persistent was a WZZM 13 reporter who also said that no one else would talk to her besides organizers. She said "why won't you let the community speak for themselves? Is it because they are "illegal immigrants?" The MOP organizer responded by saying that this is the reason that they had designated spokespersons so that the people wouldn't be subjected to such questions and that the consequences of identifying people could mean the loss of employment. Still frustrated, the channel 13 reporter turned to her cameraman and said "get more footage of these people."

This is how the news media conducts themselves. When 10,000 people marched in Grand Rapids for immigration rights, who did channel 8 give the first words to in their 5:30pm newscast? Not one of the march organizers, not a march participant, but Representative Pete Hoekstra. Hoekstra voted for HR 4437 which would criminalize people who are undocumented and anyone who associates with them and all he could talk about was border security. So the largest march in Grand Rapids in over 20 years and channel 8 not only doesn't give priority to those involved in the march, but doesn't provide follow up coverage to why so many people would take action on this issue. Why? One answer is that those that were marching don't matter. They don't watch local TV news that is in English and they don't read the Grand Rapids Press, therefore they don't read or hear the ads run in those news outlets. You only matter if you are a consumer and until the non-English speaking immigrant population becomes a target market of advertisers the larger local daily news agencies will not pay much attention to them.

In contrast, the local Spanish language media, both radio and print has responded quite well to this issue. The editor of El Vocero, Andres Abreu, has not only been printing stories in his paper on the draconian federal legislation, he has been part of the organizing effort and has spoke at several events. All of the area Spanish language radio stations have also reported on the community organizing around this issue, promoted events and helped raise money for the 10,000 strong march in Grand Rapids and the bus load of people who went to DC. Certainly it would be unfair to say that these media outlets are great sources of independent media. They all engage in a tremendous amount of commercialism, but have easily surpassed the weak journalism practiced by the daily English language news agencies in Grand Rapids. How did they do that?....they just responded to the needs of the community.

Si quieres communicar con Jeff, manda un correo electronico a jsmith(at)grcmc.org. Hasta la Victoria Siempre!