LA Students: ‘Chant Down the Walls’

LOS ANGELES, November 6 — Nearly one hundred students participated in forums to discuss the mass deportations of immigrant workers under the Obama administration. It was organized at University of California Los Angeles and a nearby Cal State University. This discussion took place in the build-up to Obama’s announcement of an executive order to grant approximately five million undocumented immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportations. Students from the Progressive Labor Party participated in these discussions and are building a base for the Party’s ideas among other students. This includes  inviting Ezell Ford’s (25-year-old black man killed by the cops on August 11) family to speak at a future event on campus to discuss how students can build a multiracial response to racist police terror.
The main speaker at the campus forums argued that mass deportations and the building of a police state are symptoms of capitalism in crisis and the need for compliant, flexible and disposable labor, both U.S. urban centers and in Latin America. PL students drew the connection between the racist killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the police terror experienced by immigrant families fearing deportation.
From Debate to
Demonstration
In the weeks following these forums,  PL students involved in immigrant rights groups have helped organize regular weekly protests. They  “chanted down the walls” outside of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center demanding the release of undocumented immigrants being processed for deportation. As protestors rally outside the detention center, immigrant workers who can be seen through their cell windows wave back. Last week, students connected the fight against anti-immigrant racism to solidarity actions in support of the 43 Ayotzinapa college students who were disappeared. An outdoor teach-in and rally was held on campus. Later that day students participated in a mass mobilization of approximately 500 people who occupied 6th street in front of the Mexican Consulate and McArthur Park in solidarity with Ayotzinapa.
Connecting the racist policing of immigrant workers, black youth and our working-class sisters and brothers in Mexico is critical during this period. We need to encourage students and workers to fight against the oppression of global capitalism, as exemplified by the working class in Ferguson and Ayotzinapa. As we continue to build the Party, our abilities to move masses of workers into battle against the root of the oppression in both places will bring the day when we can abolish racism and borders for good!