Trump’s government has declared war on immigrants, and ICE raids once again are being carried out in apartment buildings, on the streets and workplaces. This has been going on for the last 40 years, except this time it is targeting more people more often, including in “sanctuary cities.”
By Corriente Obrera.
This dynamic tends to increase repression through raids, incarcerations and deportations, creating chaos and fear among immigrant communities in different areas of the country. As we write this, we learn about the death of an immigrant couple that was trying to flee after being detained on a highway when going to work. Marcelina Garcia (33) and Santo Garcia (35) died in a car crash trying to get away from ICE, leaving 6 children behind.
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) denounced increased immigration raids against agricultural workers in the Kern County and nearby communities, and it is reported by UFW (United Farmworkers Union) that, so far, 26 workers have been detained in two weeks. Between October and December 2017, 2300 immigrants were detained by ICE, 1622 from San Diego, California. Recently, on January 10, 2018, the ICE carried out raids in 98 7Eleven stores throughout the country.
While the government concentrates on implementing repressive policies against immigrants, it has not done anything in relation to violence and massacres against schools, students and teachers. During Trump’s visit to ground zero of the war against immigrants (California,) on March 13, 2018, he did not visit any of the schools that protested his government’s lack of interest relating to school shootings. He only concentrated on inspecting the border-wall prototypes and carrying out a fundraising dinner for his 2020 campaign.
His inability to govern is once again exposed because the president squanders the resources of the country for his own purposes. Resources that are produced by the population, particularly by the working class.
Trump was in Los Angeles on Tuesday 13 and he already knew of the students’ call for the actions that would take place on Wednesday, the 14th, but he cowardly left on the same day without facing the students. More than one million students from different educational levels across the country came out of their classrooms to protest the government’s inability. Unlike the president, who fled from his responsibility, the students courageously implemented their actions in which even elementary students participated to demand safety in schools, shouting Enough is Enough!
At the same time, the Democrats – through an organization called “Women’s March,” which has organized large mobilizations, directed the actions of students and have already created an organism to control them and not allow them to go outside the order established by the corporate Democratic-Republican government.
This organization made its best effort so that the protest was orderly, pushing students not to leave the schools completely, which is precisely the content of the School Walkouts protests. But, despite the Democrat control, some schools did go onto the streets with their protests, which the media and organizations sympathetic to the Democrats tried to hide and minimize as much as possible.
Trump’s first report on the situation of the nation
In his speech on the nation’s situation, Trump spoke of the economic recovery; he said that we are experiencing “incredible progress,” and he added that ISIS is beaten and that sanctions against North Korea would be increased. But he mainly focused on what he calls a “failed immigration system.” He said that immigrants represent a danger to the country because they displace citizens from their jobs, and [he explained] how their criminal activities create pain and mourning for Americans. He brought relatives who have lost loved ones in the hands of gang members, pointing to the gang MS-13 as the one responsible for the crimes and as being a threat to national security, presenting that gang as the best example of the danger immigrants represent.
En otras palabras, en el reporte del estado de la nación, Trump prácticamente le declaró la guerra a los inmigrantes, y así, por medio de su discurso, continuó con su campaña racista y de criminalizar a los inmigrantes para poder, a través de la política del miedo, ganar más seguidores y despertar más odio racial.
In other words, in his report, Trump practically declared war on immigrants, and thus, through his speech, he continued with his racist campaign criminalizing immigrants, to gain more followers and awaken more racial hatred through fear politics.
Trump fell short and did not mention that there are actually 33,500 gangs across the country, according to official reports*, and he ignored the critics against political misrepresentation he uses to criminalize immigrants.
In that sense, the Police Chief of Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, said that the MS-13 is a threat to public safety but not a threat to national security. Chuck Rosenberg, who was in charge of the Drug Control Administration, said there was very little point in focusing on the MS-13 and not on other, much more dangerous organizations. Rosenberg refused to continue committing more resources to fight only that gang, and according to two people familiar with the private meeting with Attorney General Sessions, in March 2017, he later left office.
The same New York Times article says “some law enforcement officials privately commented that they feared that the push emphasized by the deportation of immigrants as the way to eradicate crime could produce a serious negative reaction against the authorities,” meaning that by not focusing on the real criminals, crime could increase after not intervening in due time against the real crime for focusing on the deportation of immigrants identified as the criminal threat; in addition to increasing the discontent and distrust of poor communities against the police.
In that same report, he cited his immigration proposal, composed of 4 main points:
- To regularize 1.8 million dreamers
- To approve 25 thousand-million dollars for the wall
- To end the visa lottery
- To no longer continue with the system to reunite distant relatives.
His proposal was the least voted in the Senate, and other 3 proposals did not get enough votes either, so it continues as usual: without a real and effective way to stop this modern holocaust, in which millions of human beings are insulted, humiliated and chased as if they were animals.
That is why we insist that we have to fight harder and better; that the traditional methods of the Democrats and the NGOs that they finance are no longer sufficient and they are obsolete; that it is time to rise to the challenges that are presented, and that we will only succeed in advancing our struggle for the immigration reform for the 11 million immigrants by organizing ourselves completely independent from the two political parties in the government.
We believe it necessary to build an immigrants’ movement to fight. Until today, basically, the struggle has been channeled towards hopes in Democrat politicians, as they are part of the government.
To do what they say on how to fight back is a mistake. The real goal of the Democrats is not for this cause to be victorious but to develop electoral support bases for the elections, for their party, for their candidates. To this, they show to be on the side of immigrants in their struggle, giving money, salary, and alleged support. But all this is done to influence and bind all those who want to fight, and thus keep them within a framework of struggle tied to the government interests, not to seek a definitive victory for immigrants.
Comrades Marcelina García and Santo García: Until Victory!
***
Notes:
*Ron Nixon, Liz Robbins, and Kate Benner. Trump Targets Ms-13a Violent Menace – If Not The One He Portrays. The New York Times. 03-01-18.
