Workers of the world unite

Emphasis on "world." Because this kind of harassment needs to stop.

A ferry from Friday Harbor on San Juan Island to Anacortes, a town on the coast, follows a domestic route — it never leaves U.S. waters. Yet, when it arrives in Anacortes, there's a chance that passengers will be greeted by the Border Patrol.

Joe Giuliano, a Border Patrol spokesman, explains what might happen if there is a checkpoint when this ferry docks.

"We're asking you your nationality and citizenship. ... If you have no paperwork with you, then we either have to be convinced by you, or run some other records checks, either on your vehicle or the name you give us, to attempt to validate that," he says.

Excuse me? I have to fucking "convince" you that I am a U.S. citizen when I am breaking no law, and when I am travelling within the United States? Fuck you fuckers.

On San Juan Island, an illegal immigrant from Mexico watches the ferry arrive. Asking not to be identified, she says she no longer dares to go off the island.

"If you go off island and you don't have the whole family with you and you get stopped there, you're going to get deported, and what about the rest of your family?" she says.

She says she feels trapped

She *is* trapped. On a fucking island, no less. And don't even tell me this is about immigrant status rather than race.

"When we got there, there was this big guy, came over to the car. I rolled down the window, and he says, 'Oh, you're American, go ahead.' The hysterical part about all this is, my wife is a French citizen," Ginsig says.

Hmm. I wonder how they can tell you're American just by looking at you. Especially when you're actually French. Hmmm.

Hurray for everyone who's marching in one of the immigrants rights May Day rallies all over the country today.

And kudos to the Longshoremen and women, for standing up against the war, the anti-immigrant hysteria, the use of "globalization" to try to pit workers against each other, racism, and the ongoing suppression of our civil liberties ever since 9/11, including the rights to protest and organize.

The last set of contentious negotiations (in 2002) took place during the period between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Iraq. Representatives of the Bush administration threatened that if there were any of the usual job actions during contract bargaining, then troops would occupy the docks because such actions would jeopardize "national security." Yet, when the PMA employers locked out the longshoremen and shut down West Coast ports for 11 days, the "security" issue vanished. President Bush then invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, forcing longshoremen back to work under conditions favorable to the employers.
....
At the start of the war in Iraq, hundreds of protesters demonstrated on the Oakland docks, and longshoremen honored their picket lines. Without warning, police in riot gear opened fire with so-called less-than-lethal weapons, shooting protesters and longshoremen alike with wooden dowels, rubber bullets, pellet bags, concussion grenades and tear gas. A U.N. Human Rights Commission investigator characterized the Oakland police attack as "the most violent" against anti-war protesters in the United States.

And finally, last year, two black longshoremen going to work in the port of Sacramento were beaten, Maced and arrested by police under the rubric of Homeland Security regulations ordained by the "war on terror."

You can see photos of today's rally and protests here.