The myth of the legal white immigrant – from La Migra to CalTrans, from sweeps to raids

by Lisa ‘Tiny’ Gray-Garcia

“ICE has been sighted in San Francisco and Oakland. They are driving a white unmarked van and are out of uniform wearing jeans, a t-shirt and sometimes a police vest,” said an anonymous community caregiver-reporter. 

Whose Land? to LandBack!

From the early days of the original theft of Turtle Island, the stealing fathers (as I call the so-called “Founding Fathers”) have perpetrated the myth of their implicit entitled “legality” on Turtle Island, while they built the notion of the Brown and Black Criminal from “somewhere else.” This all was happening even though the millions of melanated Indigenous Turtle Island residents were here for thousands of years before the wite European immigrants arrived and began their genocidal terrorist campaign of removal. 

But in their massive public relations campaign, the settlers launched a completely counter narrative in which they conflated the original land stewards and protectors of Turtle Island, the enslaved Africans they exploited and brought here so they could profit off this stolen land and any and all melanated peoples who came from anywhere else besides Europe.

On the converse, the savior, implicitly and conveniently “legal,” hard-working, wite immigrant (settler) from Europe was never questioned, charged or imprisoned for their hundreds of years of murder, terror, land theft, genocide and, most importantly for this argument, border jumping. 

Notwithstanding all of their other distracting eugenicist lies, these wite European criminals were only interested in one thing, the theft of Turtle Island and eventual transformation into the colonial project called the US. 

This lie eventually led to the unfettered “private ownership” and extraction of Mama Earth and her resources by people who have no accountability or responsibility or ties to stewardship of mama earth and only view her as a profit-making business. 

The truth is the European settlers aka immigrants who “arrived” here, claiming they were “discoverers,” never had a proper immigration process, a green card issued or a passport demand and remain to this day truly illegal and criminal immigrants.

From Palestine to Turtle Island, from gentrifukation to eviction to homelessness

What they did bring was a huge set of anti-poor and anti-disabled people laws that they imported and implemented on the land they stole, which laid the groundwork for the other violent aspect of their residency, the criminalization of poverty and the creation of homelessness. 

“We had no concept of homelessness in the time of my ancestors. This was created by the settlers.” said Corrina Gould, co-founder of Sogorea Te Land Trust, Indians Working For Change and The Family Elders Council of Homefulness and POOR Magazine.

Once these illegal immigrants flooded in to “save us” and create their genocidal campaign of so-called civilization, it was all about land grabs, fake treaties they never honored and bloody wars leading to more false lines on their maps. But, most importantly, it led to the individual “ownership” of Mama Earth and the privileging of so-called private property – and even so-called public property – over people. Then came implementation of the lie of rent, the subsequent evictions, redlining and speculation and the all out assault on Mama Earth as a commodity. 

For the last year and a half we have watched in horror as the 21st century version of genocidal colonization of Palestine and its people by the Israeli settlers unfolded. Interestingly, the Israeli settlers move freely across the land they have stolen, aka occupied Palestine, while Indigenous Palestinians are subject to endless paper document requirements, harassment and arrest while Trump and his son in law Jared claim, “Wow, this is some beautiful beachfront property,” about the Indigenous stolen homeland of the Palestinian people known as Gaza. 

LA Migra to DPW

“This is your five-minute warning,” say PoLice, Caltrans and ICE agents across so-called California to houseless humans existing outside and Indigenous peoples from the false side of the colonial border facing an ICE “raid” or ICE “sweep” of a workplace.

There are so many connections. Beginning with the word Sweep, a hygienic metaphor used to describe the removal and criminalization, arrest and seizure of humans that this racist,classist, ableist, system no longer wants to see, use or exploit.

“Twenty poLice and CalTrans workers are currently towing cars and arresting anyone who refuses to leave immediately,” said a post on a text thread by a mutual aide worker.

And then there is the fact that a large percentage of houseless humans being swept, seized, arrested and criminalized in cities from so-called Chicago to San Francisco, are Indigenous migrants themselves. 

The other lie that connects the struggles of homelessness and anti-immigrant attacks, is like us houseless people, Indigenous relatives are used as political fodder for politricksters to gain points with the racist United Snakkkes population, 

Our protections are connected to our liberation

This is stolen land and yet we as houseless people are criminalized for being on it. We are told this is public land, but it’s not public and is really only for the wite, rich public. The borders are a false colonial construct of the same colonial government that stole the land, killed the original inhabitants and commodified Mama Earth right out from under us. 

Article 10. Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free and informed consent of the Indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return. – From the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is a liberatory document created by leaders of Indigenous nations all across Mama Earth over several painstaking years that must be included in our conversation, our overstanding and our resistance to this moment of so much racist, classist, ableist hate, harassment and illegal acts directed at Indigenous relatives from the other sides of the false border by the US privileged wite settler class of illegal immigrants. 

“As Indigenous peoples, we have the right to traverse anywhere and around our sacred Mama Earth. In our efforts to indigenize ourselves in society, it is to recapture that relationship to the earth and our inherent rights,” Tony Gonzalez of AIM-West told POOR Magazine reportera Teresa Molina in “Los Viajes/The Journeys,” a POOR Press publication.

Like our response as revolutionary houseless/landless peoples at Homefulness is to UnSell Mama Earth and work to build sweep-free sanctuary communities while the politricksters and wealth-hoarder settler class continue to sweep us like we are trash, we are lifting up liberatory documents like UNDRIP and using it to fight not only to end the false borders and false border terrorism but to demand LANDBACK and Reparations for the Indigenous peoples used and exploited to build, work, feed and care for occupied Turtle Island residents. 

As I proposed in the terrible climate change fueled fires of 2017, the wineries that were still having Indigenous relatives pick grapes without masks or protections when they should have had them shelter in place and stay home, where are the Reparations payments from these billionaire wineries to their workers for years of unsafe and barely paid work. 

Similarly now, when will the reparations be paid to Indigenous relatives from the US government for these violent PTSD causing, work-stopping, family and child abusing and terrorizing income interrupting raids? 

Not a mumbling word

“There wasn’t a mumbling word said when thousands of Ukrainian immigrants came to the US,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. He said he would NOT, as a Black man, let white supremacy pitt him against Indigenous peoples (immigrants) whose lands were stolen from them in the first place by this government. 

Mayor Johnson lifted up the other silent and never mentioned “immigrant” – the white immigrant and refugee, who last time I checked isn’t being deported, raided or harassed while so many Haitian, Mexican, Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants, to name a few, face the terror of these raids right now – proving once again white supremacy is alive and well in amerikkka in the 21st century like it always has been.

In the end we are implementing protocols of protection within the POOR Magazine and Homefulness family on our blocks, our communities, our barrios and our neighborhood. But we are also continuing with liberation and liberatory narratives. This land doesn’t belong to the Illegal wite settler/immigrant. Mama Earth is NOT now nor Never has been for sale and it never will be, and in the face of all of this collective terror and terrorist actions against Black and Brown relatives from all across Mama Earth, it is more important than ever to lift up liberation, love, interdependence and deep community care-giving, because Creator knows we need each other more than ever to keep us safe. And safety is entwined with our collective liberation and our Mama Earth’s and poor people’s protection.

Stay tuned to Poor Peoples Radio for our forum on UNDRIP, Immigration and wite Illegal immigrants with Indigenous leaders from across the US. As well, this year POOR Press will release the long-awaited “KlanMarks, Plakkks and ManUmeants, an UnTour Book Across Occupied Turtle Island,” a new genre “guidebook” from Palestine to Turtle Island, to help us all honor the sacred and the true heroes, leaders, stewards and caregivers of our sacred Mama Earth as well as the Resistance Marks to honor all the victims of colonization, PoLice Terror, Homelessness and removal. There will be three dates locally: April 12 in so-called San Rafael at the Mission, April 26 at the East Side Arts Alliance and May 20 at City Lights Books. For more information, go to poormagazine.org/calendar or email [email protected]. 

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Source: https://sfbayview.com/2025/02/the-myth-of-the-legal-white-immigrant-from-la-migra-to-caltrans-from-sweeps-to-raids/