Editorial: Only communism can smash racist borders

As refugees from Central America, Africa, and the Caribbean swell in number at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Joe Biden agreed to grant 472,000 work permits exclusively for those coming from Venezuela.  Seen as a kind gesture by some, the U.S. bosses are creating a racist divide as they fumble to address a disaster they themselves created. Workers without permits will be deported, and those who stay will be super-exploited, just as the Black working class has been for centuries.

Denver and San Diego and other cities run by liberals have “welcomed more than they can handle” and are reducing the length of stay for asylum-seekers to 14 days (CBS News Colorado, 10/2).  These “progressives” have joined the open racists from Texas and Florida in busing migrants to Chicago and New York. Migrants trek to the United States for an opportunity to work and live stable lives, yet the reality is something harshly different. Most are met with racist insults from fellow workers and fascist crackdowns from the capitalist bosses. To discourage new arrivals, New York City Mayor Eric Adams began evicting migrants from shelters amid widespread flooding (Politico, 9/22). Fake leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has offered nothing but lip service for the refugees’ plight.

The imperialist rulers, set on preparing for world war, will not provide decent lives for the international working class.  Work permits and tent cities won’t fix this appalling situation. Only a communist revolution led by Progressive Labor Party can give workers the world they deserve. The global migrant crisis is a symptom of a deeply racist system that must perpetuate inequality, nationalism, and exploitation to exist. We must combat the rise of fascism and fight to destroy capitalist borders that serve only the bosses.

Venezuela: a crisis made by capitalism
For two decades or more, the working class of Venezuela has been stuck in the crosshairs of inter-imperialist competition. President Nicholos Maduro has stayed in power largely with the help of China and Russia, which are paying the bills to keep his regime from collapsing. In recent months they have also deepened military ties with Venezuela, much to the dismay of the U.S., the longtime bully of the Americas (Dialogo Americas, 1/21/22)

In response, to force Maduro’s fake-left leadership into submission, the U.S. and a number of European countries have battered Venezuela with economic sanctions on products entering the country.  Because of the resistance of the bosses behind Maduro (and behind Hugo Chavez before him) to diversify the economy, Venezuela relies heavily on oil exports. As oil prices dropped in recent years, the country’s economy collapsed.
Suffering from one of the highest rates of hyperinflation in the world, workers in Venezuela cannot afford basic necessities. There are shortages of food and medicine and even electricity and clean water. In 2019, as the country teetered on the brink of civil war, the economic crisis was heightened by civil unrest and violence.

Worldwide, as they flee war and extreme poverty, workers and their families are traveling through jungles, deserts, large bodies of water, and territories infested by ruthless militias and gangs. But there are no safe havens for workers in a capitalist world, least of all in a racist stronghold like the U.S.  The current U.S.-Mexico border crisis reflects the desperate conditions for the working class throughout the hemisphere and beyond.
For the imperialist bosses fighting over Latin America’s resources, workers' lives are cheap.

We cannot fall for the divide-and-conquer game of these exploiters, whether they are Trump MAGA racists or liberals who defend the racist Democratic Party. In the current period, with fascism on the rise, the work of communists is especially critical. Where the bosses energize the gutter racists, communists inspire multiracial unity and help organize internationalist workers to be bold and fight back.  

Workers on the move met with fascism
The last decade has seen a mass upheaval in the lives of workers across the globe. At present, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an estimated 117 million people are forcibly displaced by violent civil unrest, political repression, and economic instability (UNHCR.org, 2023). Climate change, another product of capitalism, has led to disastrous forest fires, droughts, hurricanes, floods, and rising sea levels. In the Global South, livelihoods for millions have grown unsustainable. Hundreds of thousands of workers fleeing Africa are  stranded on the Italian island of Lampedusa, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. They are being held there indefinitely in wretched conditions under the guns of Italian soldiers (NPR, 9/23).

The capitalist-controlled media propagates racist narratives about migrants, provoking fear and division within the working class. Workers get manipulated into perceiving undocumented and asylum-seeking migrant workers as threats to their livelihoods. This strategy serves the bosses’ interests by diverting attention from the true cause of this crisis–capitalism! Disgruntled workers in U.S. cities have organized small but heavily publicized anti-immigrant rallies to stoke fear and nationalism. In Chicago, migrating workers were physically attacked and  police officers were accused of raping and impregnating underage migrants in holding cells (Chicago Tribune, 7/23). Super-liberal Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has proposed a multimillion-dollar tent city–essentially a city-run refugee camp–to house migrants (NBC Chicago, 9/23).

Communism will smash all borders
Borders are simply made-up lines created to signify where one boss's profits begin and another’s end. Never have they served the interests of the working class. Borders reinforce racist ideas that “other” workers are dangerous, untrustworthy, and out to steal jobs. Forcing workers to sleep in shelters, police stations, and tent cities is a racist travesty. We must fight back for migrating workers, and for the liberation of our entire class exploited and oppressed by the profit system.

Under communism, there would be no profits to fight over. The means of production would be controlled collectively. The factors that now drive workers to become refugees would cease to exist. Internationalism demands solidarity among workers worldwide. It calls for the dismantling of the structures that perpetuate inequality, beginning with borders.

The struggle for a better world must be a unified one, where workers from Chicago to Latin America to every corner of the globe stand together against the exploitative forces of capitalism. Only by breaking down the barriers that divide us can we hope to build a society where all workers are afforded dignity, freedom, and the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives. Join Progressive Labor Party as we organize to make this world a reality!