It is an honor and a privilege to be here with you today, with the leaders and organizers of one of the most vital, just and cutting edge struggles of our time. I am very grateful to Javier Rodriguez and the other conveners of this conference for inviting me to participate. I want to start by highlighting three things that are unprecedented and interconnected, three current "upsurges," and I am not referring to Bush's escalation in Iraq.

The first is an upsurge in Latino immigration to the United States. Officially, there are 34 million immigrants in the U.S., 12-15 million of them undocumented, although we know that these are underestimates. Migration levels in recent years have surpassed those of the turn of the 19th century. Of these 24 million, 18-20 million are from Latin America, the majority from Mexico, but also from Central America, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere.

The second is the upsurge of repression, racism, and discrimination against immigrants – the minutemen, the denial of drivers licenses, attacks, evictions, escalating raids, public segregation and anti-immigrant jim crow, and so on. We are witnessing the criminalization of immigrants and the militarization of their control by the state.

Third is an unprecedented mass immigrant rights movement. We saw last Spring the largest demonstrations in U.S. history. They had the powers that be quite frightened. This is what poder popular looks like; what "power of the people" means.

What is the larger context and backdrop of anti-immigrant politics and immigrant struggle? In an attempt to answer this question I would like to put forward 10 points for analysis and discussion. [...]