New York City, January 13—The New Year began with a round of sexist, racist home raids and deportations of undocumented immigrants, mainly mothers and children from Central America. The Obama administration has kept its promise of terrorizing Latin workers. Immigration Customs Enforcement has arrested hundreds of immigrants, all subject to deportation, mostly in North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and California, but also in New Jersey and New York.
Best Defense: Stay on the Offense Against Capitalism
Members of the immigrant rights organization in which Progressive Labor Party members are active, as well as large numbers of undocumented workers in this working-class neighborhood, are alarmed. The organization gave workshops informing immigrants of their legal “rights” if ICE confronts them. There was also talk of finding sanctuary in churches for immigrants at risk of deportation. We in PLP are supporting these measures.
But its reformist outlook limits the organization. It is downplaying this surge in deportations as “normal” ICE activity. It relies on good lawyers in deportation hearings and tries to get local laws passed to protect immigrants. While PLP is not opposed to good lawyers, these approaches are at best illusory and at worst a liberal attempt to pacify the working class in the face of growing capitalist oppression and racist division.
Our club continues to be active in anti-racist fightback. We are organizing events and bringing communist analysis to our friends in the immigrant organization. Our comments have been applauded at two big meetings. We have called for demands that can put the working class on the offensive: no deportations, immediate acceptance of Syrian war refugees, open borders for all workers and amnesty now for all immigrants in the U.S., with no restrictions. We want fightback that will include all workers: “Black, Latin, Asian, white, same enemy, same fight.” We will never accept racist state terror as “normal.”
Citizen and immigrant workers must unite to fight these racist deportations. Being a citizen worker in the capitalists’ most powerful imperialist nation is no protection, either. Just look at the workers in Flint, Michigan--56 percent Black, 35 percent white—whose fecal-colored water with high lead content saves the bosses money (see page 3). Capitalist state terror comes in many forms, but it hurts all workers.
What Is to Be Done?
So what does communist leadership within mass organizations mean today? To strengthen the working class, communists must:
★ Develop workers’ understanding of how imperialist rivalry and constant war is related to attacks on immigrants worldwide (see next issue);
★ Relate deportations to racist surge of police killings of Black workers and youth to anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attacks;
★ Expose how the capitalist ruling class and its media seize on “fear of terrorism” to blame immigrants and Syrian refugees for the entry of terrorists into the U.S. and Europe while obscuring the criminal, racist and fascist nature of capitalism;
★ Denounce the capitalist governments, from Europe to the US., that are closing borders and leaving refugees to their deaths. This is capitalist murder.
★ Fight like hell to build a multiracial movement to organize and win people to communism. Study alone cannot teach us what we need to learn. Fighting back in our community centers, jobs, schools, military and streets can be school for communism.
Workers will continue to find ways to cross borders and to be a source of cheap labor in the U.S. They cross these fake borders because capitalism has displaced families with inter-imperialist wars and un-natural disasters, all in pursuit of maximum profit.
Not all immigrants are unwelcome, however. The bosses will continue to welcome technologists and scientists who can help U.S. imperialism project its power worldwide and remain on top. There might be a guest worker program to allow temporary immigrants to work in agriculture, food packing and other industries, but without any of the so-called labor rights currently held by citizen workers in the U.S. Another focus will be on immigrant youth who can join the military as ground troops in the next big imperialist war.
Our club wrote a leaflet to distribute in the neighborhood, and we are organizing a march. The working class needs communist revolution. As the leaflet concludes, “The only way the international working class can destroy racism, fascism and imperialist war is to make revolution so the working class can take power and build communist society based on egalitarianism. Only the international working class can destroy the brutal, capitalist system.” Join our Party!