As the Socialist Equality Party’s candidate for vice president in the 2020 elections, I denounce the dictatorial moves of the Trump administration to deploy militarized border patrol agents to carry out raids and terrorize immigrant neighborhoods throughout the country.
The SEP demands an immediate end to all deportations, along with the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
Trump is deploying teams from the SWAT-like unit known as BORTAC to “sanctuary cities,” where local governments have ordered police not to fully comply with federal immigration agents. The cities targeted are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and Newark, New Jersey.
These squads, which have received Special Forces-type training, include members trained as snipers. They are directed to tear apart families with brute military force. They are also aimed at creating an atmosphere of intimidation and fear in working class immigrant neighborhoods and cities where Trump is unable to make an appearance due to his extreme unpopularity.
These actions are part of the Trump administration’s fascistic measures aimed at stoking extreme nationalism and targeting immigrants and refugees.
The Democratic Party is fully complicit in the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies. Under President Barack Obama, millions were deported, and a network of concentration camps was established, which Trump is using to imprison tens of thousands, including children.
The Democrats worked systematically to suppress and channel popular opposition to Trump that erupted after his election, including over his anti-immigrant policies. They have ensured the continued funding of the immigrant detention apparatus and have done nothing to oppose the illegal transfer of billions of dollars to build a border wall with Mexico.
Bernie Sanders, who has surged to the top of the polls in the Democratic Party, does not represent an alternative. Sanders is playing a critical role in channeling mass opposition among workers and youth behind the right-wing Democratic Party. Sanders, moreover, infamously called open borders a “Koch brothers proposal” and has praised Obama, the “deporter-in-chief,” as a model.
The attack on immigrants is an attack on the entire working class. The ruling class wants the population to get used to the sight of unmarked cars dragging people away in broad daylight to internment camps, never to be seen again. It wants to pit workers against one another along nationalist lines, so that they do not unite against the real enemy—capitalism.
The Socialist Equality Party fights for the international unity of the working class against capitalism and an end to the nation-state system. We oppose the attacks on immigrants and the attempt by the far-right movements to blame them for the crisis of American society.
All workers in the United States must take a stand to oppose the bipartisan attacks on immigrants. The measures which are being used against immigrants today, including the deployment of the militarized federal force, will be used against all workers to suppress protests and strikes.
Against the militarization of borders and the persecution of immigrants, the SEP stands for open borders: the right of all workers to live in the country they choose, with full citizenship rights, including the right to work and travel without fear of deportation or repression.
The defense of immigrants must be connected to a socialist program to guarantee everyone has the right to a decent, good-paying job, free healthcare, free education, a clean environment, access to culture, and a world free from war and violence.
The resources exist to meet these social rights for all workers. The problem is the capitalist system and the monopolization of the vast majority of humanity’s wealth by a tiny corporate and financial elite.
Capitalism has shown us the only future it can offer: walls, repression, war. Against this madness we call for socialism: a world economy run in the interests of human need, not private profit.
All those who want to defend immigrants and unite the working class in the struggle for socialism against capitalism should join and support our election campaign. Visit socialism2020.org to sign up today!