CHICAGO, March 30—Anti-deportation community organizers from three different Midwest states met in a forum to share their struggles and successes against the capitalist bosses’ racist mass detention and deportation machine.
The forum demonstrated that even small collectives of committed anti-racist fighters can effectively shut down the fascist plans of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prison profiteers, especially when they are committed to long-term struggle and building a base in working-class neigborhoods.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) put forth a communist perspective on the movement against racist deportations. We stressed the importance of connecting the fights against the bosses’ racist attacks on both Latin workers and Black workers as we build a movement against the capitalist system that exploits and oppresses us all.
Learning through the mass work
The focus of the event was to summarize the work of three fightback groups, including the groups of several Party members, and discuss ways that their continued support of each other could be beneficial. The forum was organized by a local collective with deep ties in immigrant neighborhoods around Chicago’s west side. The struggles shared today spanned as far back as 2012, taking place across Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois.
Organizers from Illinois discussed how they were able to defeat a proposal to build an immigrant prison in the small rural town of Crete in 2012, by utilizing mass media and organizing a three-day march from Chicago to the town in order to build opposition. Their efforts coincided with mass anti-NATO demonstrations that were happening in Chicago at the time, and therefore were able to draw support from other anti-capitalist fighters.
Workers from Indiana shared their efforts organizing in the majority-Black city of Gary to defeat a similar proposal to build an immigration prison. By drawing a wide base of support from many organizations, including faith-based groups, workers and community organizers, they were able to build a protracted campaign against local politicians and the GEO Group, a private prison corporation.
They discussed how their struggle was boosted by the surge in national anti-racist fightback inspired by the anti-racist rebellion in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Comrades in this group talked about how their communist politics directed both their actions and line within the organization, and their collective base-building among other workers.
Members from a prison abolition organization in Michigan then detailed their recent success in preventing a prison from being built in a small town in western Michigan. They explained how the private prison corporations intentionally target smaller, economically-devastated towns with majority-white populations, and try to build support by the promise of “bringing jobs.”
A key theme tonight centered on the liberal racism and anti-working class politics of non-profit immigrant rights groups. These groups are funded by and march in lockstep with the Democratic Party. Numerous instances were brought up in which organizations such as the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) intentionally withheld information about the prison proposals and sought to undermine more radical and anti-racist efforts to oppose the prisons.
Liberal reforms will never end the racist attacks against immigrant workers because reforms seek to steer the struggle into electoral politics and ultimately win more workers into supporting the capitalist system. The bosses’ liberal fascism must be countered with a bold message of communist revolution, which seeks to unite all workers into a movement to destroy this system which profits off the detention and deportation of our class sisters and brothers.
Building working-class consciousness
Fighters also discussed the ongoing work and lessons they’ve continued to learn. PL’ers said class struggle teaches the working class to fight and build a higher class-consciousness. Wins and losses are short-lived due to the nature of the reform. The ultimate goal has to be smashing the capitalist system that keeps workers and students on this hamster wheel of reformism.
Fighting alongside the masses against the bosses, their cronies, and their institutions is a mandatory step in building revolutionary consciousness and resolve. Equally mandatory is sharing these experiences in communal spaces and continuing to be bold about the line, including distributing CHALLENGE.
Our collective knowledge and skills in fighting immigrant prisons is set to be tested once again, as the mayor and town council of the small town of Dwight, Illinois have tentatively approved the construction of a detention center by Immigrant Centers of America.
Onward to another battle against the racist capitalists! Onward to international communist revolution!