Harold,

Please be careful about making so many personal judgements about the ideals, motives, and lives of activists just from reading about an action. When you see slogans like "Somos un pueblo sin fronteras/We are a people without borders" or "Ninguna persona es ilegal/No human being is illegal," it doesn't mean we're proposing the instantaneous demolition of the Mexican/American border as a solution. These messages are an attempt to break down the way people view these borders and labels and to realize the humanity of all people, regardless of nationality or legal status.

Those of us who went down from Santa Cruz are all dedicated activists who are always looking for positive long-term solutions to the social problems we face. Living in northern California, there isn't a lot of regular organizing we can do about border issues, but we used the No Border actions as an opportunity to do what we could. We spent our extra time after the actions meeting with organizers across the border and attempting to set up cross-border networks for future vigilante disruption.

However, most of us have also been organizing year-round around the issue of mistreatment of low-wage service workers at UCSC, which is a primarily immigrant workforce. Establishing a network of student and worker solidarity based on the goals of equitable treatment, real opportunities for advancement, and living wages at a campus which happens to be the largest employer in the county is one way in which social justice for people who have immigrated can be tackled in our own community.

Students on campus have also organized to coerce the UC into actually living up to its "Code of Ethics" that bans the purchasing of goods made in sweatshops.

You suggest individual caretaking of immigrants as a solution to the problem of illegal immigration and a test of dedication to the issue. I think if the resources and willingness existed for this to happen on a mass scale, it would be wonderful. But otherwise, there is a shortsightedness in helping a few people at a time while leaving intact the socioeconomic structures that have forced them into poverty in the first place. You can trim the edges of problems as much as you want, but they won't disappear until you pull them up by the roots.