Credit: Citizen Kepler
By the League Basic Needs Electoral Committee
Outrage at ICE raids and deployment of the National Guard and Marines in LA has unleashed an explosion of resistance all over the US. Tens of thousands marched in solidarity in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and other cities. The ICE assault and arrest of union president David Huerta galvanized protests by union members all across California. In San Jose, unions and immigrant families joined with housing leaders to condemn criminalization of not only migrants by the Trump administration, but of unhoused people by local Mayors and the California Governor. “When we all come together, that is where we find our power,” said Huy Tran, leader of the immigrant rights group SIREN. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson battled stepped-up ICE deployments. “It’s a war on our culture,” he said. “It’s a war on our democracy. I am counting on all of Chicago to resist in this moment, because whatever vulnerable group is being targeted today, another group will be next.”
MASS DEPORTATION
These leaders are pointing the way toward the working class solidarity that is the only force capable of defeating the drive toward fascism. The attack on immigrants is the cutting edge of the fascist offensive. It is part of preparing to target other sectors of the working class. But most Americans are only slowly beginning to grasp its scale, ferocity, and full implications. Trump lulled public opinion with the lie that he would only deport “criminals” and the “worst of the worst”. But his actions have revealed his true intentions:
- raids on shopping malls, schools, shelters, churches, and workplaces;
- the ICE Director’s statements that all undocumented are criminals;
- revocation of temporary protected status for over half a million legal residents;
- attempts to deport legal permanent residents;
- the campaign to “denaturalize” millions of American citizens;
- an executive order to repeal birthright citizenship;
- and the Trump order requiring proof of citizenship in order to vote.
The mass deportation of 15-20 million people promised in Trump campaign speeches would be the largest mass displacement in human history, with the exception of World War Two. Despite logistical challenges, officials are leaving no stone unturned trying to make it happen. In late May, Trump deputy Stephen Miller called on ICE to increase its daily arrest quota from 1000 to 3000, and to aim to deport one million people by the end of 2025.
As we speak, ICE is weaponizing data on 700,000 people that was illegally seized by DOGE from federal police agencies, Social Security, the IRS, Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services. The intention is to enthrone ICE as a political police, end even the pretense of democracy, consolidate a corporate dictatorship, and make war on the American people. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem clarified the goal when she claimed that LA’s solidarity with immigrants made its entire 3.8 million population a “city of criminals”.
WORKING CLASS UNITY
While the anti-immigrant offensive clearly targets primarily people of color, it is not just any people of color. It is specifically low-income, working class people of color. At the same time as he was deporting workers, Trump rolled out a plan to sell citizenship to wealthy investors no matter what country they come from. America’s 48 million immigrants are an inseparable part of the working class, especially the low-income sector, through workplaces, tenant associations, unhoused encampments, unions, and neighborhoods. Workers who join the rapid response networks to defend immigrants are defending themselves also, by fighting for the unity of their class.
The violence and viciousness of this attack is an indication of strategic weakness on the part of the ruling class. The billionaires that make up their ranks are only a tiny percentage of the population, while the workers they intend to disenfranchise, rob, and exploit make up hundreds of millions. The attack on migrants, like the attack on DEI, are brutal and real, but also only opening battles in a war against the entire low-wealth sector of the working class. They are intended to prevent people from uniting against the budget bills that will cut Medicaid by $700 billion, food stamps by $280 billion, and HUD rental housing assistance by $27 billion. The poverty, homelessness and human misery these cuts will create are pushing people to unite across lines of race, language, and culture. The role of revolutionaries – the uncompromising fighters for community and compassion – is to join the battle for class unity wherever it is breaking out, beginning with the people most impacted, and strengthen it step by step.
BEAUTIFUL WORLD
While solidarity is the immediate demand of the moment, revolutionaries are also responsible to outline a clear vision for the future. Within the private property system, revolutionary technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) today can only offer unemployment, misery, and environment-crushing data centers. But a society based on public ownership could use the amazing productivity of AI to shorten the work week, enrich our communities, and clean up our planet.
Revolutionaries popularize this vision wherever they are, in the movements for health care, unions, education, the environment, reproductive freedom, and resistance to genocide. In their invaluable handbook, Abolish Rent, leaders of the LA Tenants Union describe the world the working class is fighting for, from the perspective of tenants: “It is a struggle for new democratic structures for managing and distributing resources according to our needs. It is a struggle against those whose wealth and power is made on the backs of our demise. Those who are now the most vulnerable to the violence and injustice of our current system have the most to gain by its destruction and the creation of another way of life. We want a world without landlords and a world without rent. We want everything for everybody.”
The massive “No Kings Day” marches on June 14 were a victory for democracy. But returning Democrats to control of Congress will not abolish ICE and will not stop fascism, if elections are even permitted in 2026. The most visionary speakers urged us to go beyond opposing Trump and MAGA, and take the battle to the corporations and the billionaires. That is the road to the better world we are fighting for.
Published on July 3rd, 2025
This article originated in Rally!
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