Since the rally in 2006, talk about Immigration Reform has not taken place brought about by the country’s election. Much of the minority vote goes to Barack Obama who was for immigration reform, although John McCain was also a previous leader of a bill (along with Sen. Ted Kennedy) that would’ve legitimized over 12 million people currently in the U.S.

One of the standing arguments about illegal immigrants is that they broke the law which criminalizes them. This has gotten the ire of human rights activists who contend that there was no ill-intent for majority of the people who cross the borders illegally other than to get a better life. This is one aspect focused on by a new book by David Bacon entitled Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.

Bacon’s new book humanizes the stories of undocumented workers and current guest workers trying to survive in the U.S. He follows the lives of Guatemalan tree planters, Filipino workers in Silicon Valley’s high-tech, highly toxic sweatshops and indigenous Mexican workers from Oaxaca in California. Bacon not only examines their lives in the U.S., but also explores the causes of conditions in immigrants’ countries of origin and what drives them to migrate.

Bacon’s book provides key arguments about how corporate globalization creates migrants, and corporations have set the terms for migrant workers’ rights–only as guest workers, working for the needs of employers and disposable when not needed. If not working, immigrants are “illegal people.” Immigrant and labor rights activists cannot accept guest-worker programs as the solution or “deal” for limited legalization of a few.

Bacon’s book explains why, and points towards the types of grassroots and labor organizations who have successfully united workers across ethnic and race lines to fight for more humane, equal conditions. [source]

You can catch other Filipino stories on David Bacon’s website