2. Empower workers and promote the right to a living wage
Undocumented immigrants are very unlikely to organize for better wages or working conditions, because they would not only be risking their jobs but also risking deportation. This leaves immigrants open to severe exploitation by employers, which pushes down wages for all workers. It's mostly undocumented workers who work in sweatshops here in the U.S., where sweatshops are rampant. Allowing all workers, including immigrants, to organize for their rights without fear of repercussion will help U.S. workers in their struggle as well. By contrast, creating temporary worker programs and not giving permanent residency status to workers who are already here creates a two-tiered labor pool, consigning one segment of the workforce to permanent underclass status.

3. Challenge racism
Underlying the immigration debate is an unspoken issue: racism. Many people who have no problem with European immigrants are virulently opposed to immigrants who are black or brown. Racism is an undercurrent in many debates about the issues we work on -- from the rights of Mexican and Central American immigrants to attitudes toward Palestinians' struggle for self-determination to discussions about the criminal justice system. As anti-racist organizers for peace and justice, we should always be ready to challenge racism and white supremacy when they rear their ugly heads.

4. Strengthen the peace movement by building alliances
The Bush Administration strategy for winning popular support for their war policies relies upon portraying people of color within the U.S., Iraq, and elsewhere as security threats, and their lives and rights as less valuable than those of others. Standing with immigrants will help us build the alliances we need to be strong enough to end the Iraq war. Polls indicate that anti-war sentiment is greatest among people of color, with African-Americans the most opposed and Latinos behind them; in order to create a broad-based movement against the Iraq war, it is essential to engage and promote the rights of immigrants.

5. Build economic alternatives by addressing the roots of injustice
We must take a stand against the right wing's misrepresentation of economic, cultural and social problems in this country. Immigrants are being scapegoated for taking jobs from U.S. citizens, draining our social welfare system, and increasing crime. This is an attempt by the right wing to avoid addressing the root causes of these problems, which are corporate globalization, a bloated defense budget, wars of aggression, failed national policies and racism.

6. Challenge the neoliberal agenda for global trade
Immigration is a result of unfair, anti-democratic and corporate-led trade policies. NAFTA was sold as the great economic and wage equalizer that would drastically reduce Mexican migration to the U.S. Yet today Mexico is the largest source of undocumented/hyper-exploited workers for U.S. agriculture, food processing, and the urban service industry. Trade policy based on pro-people, pro-environment development will allow people in the Global South to live with dignity and not be forced to emmigrate to the U.S. for work.

7. Expose Immigration double standards
Expose Bush's double standard -- "wet foot/dry foot" Cuba immigration law. While Congress threatens to declare undocumented workers felons, a 40-year-old U.S. law rewards emigration from Cuba and only Cuba. Cubans are only required to reach land in the U.S. to receive a permanent resident "green card" status. Immediate legal status and benefits to lure Cuban people to sea and has lead to the death and disappearance of hundreds of people. Not granting similar rights to people fleeing countries with track of human rights abuses is unjust: a clear example of making decisions based on political ideology.

8. Strengthen voting rights and political representation
We live in a democratic state; in principle, the people are the ultimate power, deciding their future and government. Most of the estimated 12 million legal permanent residents cannot vote although they may work, pay taxes, send their children to school, and serve in the military. Excluding such a significant portion of the country's population from political participation undermines the health of our democracy.

9. Embrace our history as a nation of immigrants
The U.S. is a nation of immigrants, and the vast majority of us are immigrant descendents -- whether we are Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Irish, or any one of a hundred other countries. (All of us are immigrants, in fact, except for Native Americans.) "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," reads the inscription on New York's Statue of Liberty. We would not be the country we are today without the invaluable contributions immigrants have made to U.S. society. If we turn our backs on the same kind of people who built this nation, we are, in effect, turning our backs on ourselves.

10. Immigrant rights are human rights.
When Global Exchange says "human rights," we mean economic rights and political liberties, which include free education, a job, and an adequate standard of living. We work to promote these rights internationally, and also must defend them here at home. Immigrants are one of the group's in society that is most vulnerable to exploitation by governments and corporations. To achieve social, economic and environmental justice for everyone, we must give special attention to the people who are facing the most severe injustices -- poor people, people who are victims of war, and immigrants among them.