This is Massachusetts Not Arizona! All Out to Defeat the Anti-Immigrant Senate Budget Amendment.

Words cannot describe the contempt in which this publication currently holds the Mass. Senate for their disgraceful vote to kick our state's immigrant communities to the curb this week. More disgusting still is that one of the six sponsors of the Senate budget amendment in question is a Democrat - Sen. Steven Baddour (D - Methuen) - who has suddenly decided that "we have an illegal immigration problem here" despite being a leader in a political party that is generally pro-immigrant 'round these parts. The good senator is of Lebanese ancestry ... and a member of the Sons of Italy Lodge #902 according to his State House web page. Bit of an immigrant connection there. Like everyone else whose family has come to this country in the last century (every single one "legally" ... ha!). And ultimately everyone but full-blooded Native Americans. Irony heaps upon irony. The rest of the sponsors were Republicans - feeling their oats after the victory of Sen. Scott Brown (R - Mass.) a few months back and buoyed by (or perhaps simply terrified of) local Tea Party organizations happy to take out their much publicized political and economic anger on a group of people who can't defend themselves politically any more than they can prevent their home countries from being looted by the U.S. and other countries in the global north.

Baddour, however, was hardly the only Democrat to flack for the amendment. Sen. Steve Panagiotakos (D - Lowell) - a son of Greek immigrants from one of the most heavily immigrant cities in the Commonwealth - was involved in negotiations with Republican sponsors, and was quoted in the Lowell Sun as being unable to put a price tag on the money that undocumented immigrants supposedly cost the state. Unable because numbers and facts were in short supply in the ridiculously brief debate over this amendment. The emerging wisdom in the press from both the right-wing and left-wing is that this is all about election year posturing. And if the spin is breaking right, then rightwards all the careerist politicians go. Forget morality, ethics and simple consistency. Forget family background and the ethnic makeup of your constituency. Forget having any kind of spine. Pretend that the sad punitive measures sailing through the legislature will do anything at all to help the state economy and create good jobs. Just cower and do the chicken dance when it's convenient and don't put up the least fight if you're the average Massachusetts "liberal" pol in a period of conservative attack PR.

I could go on, but here's a full list of the damage that could be done if the Senate amendment becomes law

• Bar contractors from bidding on public contracts if they employ illegal immigrants
• Require businesses that contract with the state to verify immigration status of employees
• Require an individual have a driver's license to register a motor vehicle
• Increase the penalties for driving without a license
• Create new penalties for falsifying a learner's permit, driver's license or state identification card
• Require MassHealth, the state's health insurance program, to check on a person's immigration status before granting them insurance
• Make sure an illegal immigrant can't get access to public housing before a legal resident
• Require the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations for private workplace verification of immigration status
• Require the verification of immigration and/or citizenships status of any defendant arraigned in a state court
• Prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition benefits at Massachusetts state colleges
• Establish a toll-free hotline for people to confidentially report unlawful employment of illegal immigrants

As has been pointed out from Gov. Patrick's office on down to immigrant advocacy groups, many of these "reforms" are simply redundant. Undocumented immigrants are already denied most public services. But now they will have even less ability to get basic health care and hold down a job - leading to further immiseration ... and a real public health threat among other social problems. And that last bit about people being able to drop a dime on anyone they suspect of being an "illegal" immigrant in the workplace ... well that's just friggin' Nazi and creepy. But if nativists think this kind of pressure will force undocumented immigrants to "go home" or stem the tide of such immigration, they are wrong. The countries people are leaving are economic wastelands. There simply aren't jobs for millions of people from Central and South America ... and the rest of the global south.

Multi-national corporations with the full backing of governments like ours have made it impossible for people to stay where they were born. So they come here instead and face our irrational federal immigration policy. Which makes it impossible for people from most of the countries the corporations have ruined to enter the U.S legally. And then people are forced by circumstance to find non-legal means of getting here. Often aided and abetted by self-same corporations that have done the most damage to the global south - and who are always in search of a cheap exploitable workforce. Even as the global economy continues to collapse this vicious cycle of exploitation and immiseration continues unabated.

But do we reign in the multi-nationals with national and international regulation (and ideally, criminal prosecution)? Do we help rebuild countries in the global south, cancel their debt and pay reparations? Do we forthrightly reform our immigration system to make it fair and transparent; so that people have a reasonable chance of entering the country legally if they keep their noses clean? No. The rich and powerful have bought and paid for government at most every level. With most politicians beholden to the big corporations and banks, they can't attack the real problem facing working people here and abroad. So instead, when times are tough, they start attacking the poor like clockwork. Look at the many disgraceful periods of nativist hysteria in American history if you don't believe me.

The Mass. Senate's assault on immigrants is just one example of a sudden and sizable wave of legislation against poor people. The recent House and Senate amendments that would make it legal to charge regular fees to county prisoners to pay for their own incarceration is another. And this in a week that saw a very positive House vote to (genuinely) reform the CORI system for ex-offenders. Kudos to the Boston Workers Alliance and all their allies for excellent work there.

However, the Senate immigrant amendment can still be turned around. The House needs to pass a similar amendment and then the legislative right-wing will need to push it through conference committee and get the governor to sign the result.

So Open Media Boston viewers should join the mounting effort to stop this legislation in its tracks. Centro Presente and MIRA will be holding an emergency rally tomorrow at 12 noon, and the anti-campaign will only gain steam from there. Join such efforts at speed.

In closing, check out the list below from the Senate vote on the immigration amendment. If you live in the district of one of the many "yes" votes, get together with allies and give anti-immigrant anti-worker politicians hell. Get in their faces. Out their cowardly behavior. Make it clear that they won't see another term in office if they continue their downward spiral into political barbarism. Make a louder noise than the nativists on this one, and there's a real possibility this can be reversed before the Bay State is turned into some kind of conservative sinkhole.

And always remember, this is Massachusetts ... not Arizona.

Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston

Senate Anti-Immigrant Amendment Vote List (Y = fail, N = hero, no vote = wtf?)

Steven A. Baddour - Y

Frederick E. Berry- Y

Stephen M. Brewer - Y

Stephen J. Buoniconti - Y

Gale D. Candaras - Y

Harriette L. Chandler - Y

Sonia Chang-Diaz - N

Cynthia Stone Creem - N

Sal N. DiDomenico - N

Kenneth J. Donnelly - N

Benjamin B. Downing - Did not vote

James B. Eldridge - N

Susan C. Fargo - Y

Jennifer L. Flanagan - Y

Jack Hart - Y

Robert L. Hedlund - Y

Patricia D. Jehlen - N

Brian A. Joyce - Y

Thomas P. Kennedy - Y

Michael R. Knapik - Y

Thomas M. McGee - N

Joan M. Menard - Y

Mark C. Montigny - Y

Michael O. Moore - Y

Richard T. Moore - Y

Michael W. Morrissey - Y

Senate President Therese Murray - Did not vote

Robert A. O'Leary - Y

Marc R. Pacheco - Y

Steven C. Panagiotakos - Y

Anthony Petruccelli - Y

Stanley C. Rosenberg - N

Richard J. Ross - Y

Karen E. Spilka - Y

Bruce E. Tarr - Y

James E. Timilty - Y

Richard R. Tisei - Y

Steven A. Tolman - N

Susan C. Tucker - Y

Marian Walsh - N