Union workers have the power to stop ICE terror
The immigrant rights movement today must have labor’s full participation in opposition to the Trump regime's terror.
NOTE FROM Workers’ Voice EDITORS: This article was written prior to the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Following Good’s murder, trade unions around the country issued statements of condemnation. The Minnesota AFL-CIO said the state’s labor movement is “shocked, heartbroken, and angry over the murder of an innocent observer” and expressed solidarity “with committed residents who find the courage every day to protect their immigrant neighbors and coworkers from ICE agents violently trampling our constitutional rights.” The Laborers Union (LIUNA) of Minnesota and North Dakota condemned “the trauma being inflicted on workers and communities by these senseless acts of violence by our federal government.”
”National Nurses United (NNU) denounced the shooting and rejected any ICE presence at health care facilities. They stated, “Armed federal agents on our streets and in our communities, not immigrant workers, are the biggest threat to our collective safety. Increased militarization of our neighborhoods actively endangers public health.” The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union released the following statement from its president: “Our union grieves the senseless killing of Renee Nicole Good, who was shot by an ICE agent as she exercised her First Amendment rights just blocks from her own home. We condemn this act of violence. The United Farm Workers, whose members are frequently in the crosshairs of ICE repression, stated, “We mourn the loss of every soul killed by ICE and Border Patrol—whether immigrant or U.S.-born—on our streets, at our work, in their detention centers. From Renee Nicole Good to Jamie Alanis Garcia, Todos Presente.” The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) also condemned the murder, saying that “ICE must end the chaos, withdraw from Minneapolis and other cities and states, and allow people to live and work free from fear.”
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On Dec. 16 ICE commander Greg Bovino ordered his agents to harass and interrogate workers walking the picket line at Mauser Packaging Solutions. Mauser employs more than 100 mostly Latino members of Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago. The workers have been on strike since June 9, 2025, after the company failed to offer a fair contract. According to the union, the company has also illegally surveilled members in their fight for higher wages, benefits, and safe working conditions.
Despite Mauser shuttering the plant in September, workers have continued fighting both in the courts and on the picket line. These Latino trade unionists are setting an important example for the labor movement by using their strike to demand a policy to stop ICE from entering Mauser without a federal judicial warrant. A victory for these workers could help establish a precedent for opposing workplace raids, which can tear apart families and cause physical and psychological harm to workers and the community.
In a statement, Teamsters Local 705 Secretary-Treasurer Juan Campos said, “I want to thank Laura Garza and Jorge Mujica from ARISE-Chicago and Congressman Chuy Garcia for providing Know Your Rights training and resources so our members were able to think quickly and prevent further escalation by remaining calm instead of being provoked by the armed agents. I am proud these members were able to rise to the occasion and respond to this unprecedented attack on workers and the labor movement.”
Bovino is following Trump regime policies with a special brutality in order to push immigrant communities back into the shadows utilizing the repressive infrastructure built up by G.W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Trump’s policies and ICE’s tactics only serve to protect the profits of the Bosses and divide the working class. Bovino’s efforts in Chicago to intimidate union workers is just one of many examples of ICE terror directed toward the labor movement.
Notable 2025 ICE arrests include David Huerta (SEIU), Aunt Lewellyn (SEIU), Mahmoud Khalil (UAW), Rumesa Ozturk (UAW), and Kilmar Abrego Garcia (SMART). These arrests are broad in character and have targeted industrial, academic, and service workers. Perhaps Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s arrest is one of the best examples of the relentless struggle that immigrant communities and unions will need to wage to defend their members. After being deported to the infamous and brutal CECOT prisons in El Salvador he was brought back to the U.S. following a vigorous campaign of protests in the streets and legal fights in the courts. Despite being in the U.S. legally and an apprentice of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation (SMART) Workers Local 100 union, he is far from being free of government attacks and trumped-up charges. The Trump administration wants nothing more than to lock him away for good in CECOT. The government’s new strategy to denaturalize immigrant workers will undoubtedly lead to more arrests and streamline the process of deportations.
Today, any protections that workers can win through union struggles is critical to confronting every new attack by the Trump regime. These attacks include sweeping arrests of just about anyone who agents deem are not U.S. citizens quite simply by looking at the color of their skin or the language they speak. Even U.S.-born citizens like 22-year-old Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales from Maryland are at risk of being detained by ICE. Despite Dulce’s lawyers providing a birth certificate and immunization records, ICE has not released her. Once in the system, workers can be sent anywhere in the country away from their homes, where their families could more easily help them. In Dulce’s case, she was detained in Maryland and sent first to Louisiana, and then to Texas.
The immigrant rights movement today must have labor’s full participation in opposition to the Trump regime’s terror. The fact that a Teamster local like 705 is standing up for immigrant workers is important given that Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, has consistently made disparaging comments about immigrants on his podcast.
They are not alone. In March 2025, Amazon Labor Union-Teamsters Local 1 stated, “Amazon has a long history of union-busting and worker exploitation, and we refuse to let them use immigration enforcement as another weapon of intimidation. … We refuse to be divided. Where Amazon sees us as disposable, we see each other as human beings, as coworkers, as brothers and sisters in the fight for justice. Our solidarity is transformational—it dismantles the barriers they build and forges an unshakable force capable of challenging even the most powerful corporations. … By standing together across all lines of difference, we are building a movement stronger than their fear tactics, stronger than their threats. That unity will break their divide-and-conquer strategy and make real change possible.”
The ILWU also released a statement that highlighted Trump’s attempt to divide workers. The statement says, “Anti-migrant rhetoric and policies turn struggling U.S.-born workers against their migrant neighbors, rather than against the employers who exploit workers and keep wages low. ILWU’s Third Guiding Principle states, ‘Workers are indivisible. There can be no discrimination because of race, color, creed, national origin, religious or political belief, sex, gender preference, or sexual orientation,’ and our Fourth Principle states, ‘To help any worker in distress must be a daily guide in the life of every trade union and its individual members. Labor solidarity means just that.’”
At the 79th convention of the UE (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America) delegates passed a resolution that stated, “Denying immigrant workers decent wages and conditions undermines the wages and conditions of all. All workers, regardless of immigration status, must have the right to form unions, to file complaints against unfair treatment without fear of reprisal, to receive unemployment, disability and workers’ compensation benefits, and to have access for themselves and their families to affordable housing, healthcare, education and transportation.”
Union workers have the opportunity to bring these resolutions to their coworkers to help explain why solidarity with immigrants is necessary. Those shop floor discussions can turn into action at union meetings by organizing your coworkers to demand your local take up the fight for immigrant rights in concrete ways. Use the Mauser workers example and use every contract fight to defend immigrant workers. Pass solidarity resolutions. Bring your coworkers to immigrant rights meetings and use opportunities to door knock and make the connection between organized labor and immigrant workers. Now is the time to utilize every opening on the shop floor to win over fearful or skeptical co-workers.
First published here by Workers’ Voice
