By ERNIE GOTTA
Unions have been at the forefront of the opposition to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and President Trump’s growing authoritarianism. Anti-ICE mobilizations have included thousands of union members across the U.S. who demand an end to ICE terror in their communities. The mass opposition to ICE shows a dynamic initial response to the immediate threat of attacks on working families.
Still, there is an even bigger fight taking shape. Trump’s deployment of National Guard and Marine forces following an upsurge in protests in Los Angeles threatened the basic freedoms of speech, and our rights to assemble and organize. Working people can’t operate under the assumption that this struggle is only going to unfold in Los Angeles. What if the National Guard is deployed in other cities in California or anywhere else in the country? What if Trump invokes martial law in so-called sanctuary cities?
What will the labor movement do next? What should the labor movement do next? Why is the struggle to build a class-struggle left wing in the labor movement such an urgent task for all class-conscious workers?
This article will attempt to provide some context, with examples of attacks on documented and undocumented workers. It will try to show how defense of these workers can be turned into a mass fight for civil liberties while at the same time becoming a fight to build a class-struggle left in organized labor that can maintain help politicize our unions and win the fight against authoritarianism.
ICE detains union members
Sections of the labor movement that have a base of members who are immigrant workers are playing an essential role in building a broad defense movement. There is the example of the SMART (sheet metal workers) union mobilizing members and allies to bring back unjustly deported union apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been sent to the brutal CECOT prison in El Salvador on trumped-up charges.
Then there is the case of Lewelyn Dixon, affectionately known as “Auntie Lynn” in the community. She is a member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 925 and a lab tech at the University of Washington Medical Center. She was detained since late February at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Wash. She went to the Philippines, just as she had for many years, to visit family. She was detained on the way back from this trip. Lewelyn came to the United States when she was 14 and is a legal permanent resident.
Then there is the case of SEIU California President David Huerta. Federal authorities potentially made one of their biggest mistakes by arresting and brutalizing Huerta while he had been protesting and observing an ICE raid at a garment warehouse in Los Angeles. His arrest sparked a national outrage well beyond the labor movement and helped bring national attention to the brutality of the raids in Los Angeles. Although free, President Huerta is still facing charges of impeding a federal agent, and if found guilty, faces up to six years in prison.
Trump & Stephen Miller plan for undocumented workers
Huerta, Dixon, and Garcia were all citizens or had some form of documentation to legally be in the U.S. What their stories do not tell is the cases of thousands of undocumented workers in restaurants, hotels, agriculture, and meatpacking who are being detained and deported every day by the Trump administration. According to AP News, Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, said, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least 3000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.”
Miller is clearly trying to position Trump to be the next “Deporter in Chief,” a title currently held by Barrack Obama, whose administration holds the records for deportations both over the course of four years (2 million) and in a single year (438,421 in 2013). Fortunately, Miller has yet to reach his goal and has stalled at a still staggering 2000 arrests per day.
The narrative of ICE deporting “criminals” has always been a thinly veiled attempt to keep undocumented workers in the shadows as second-class citizens. These ICE raids are being used to thwart organizing efforts by undocumented workers. One example occurred on May 2, when 14 Mexican-born and Guatemalan-born members of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union were taken off the Lynn-Ette vegetable farm’s work bus in Albion, N.Y., by ICE. These workers had been organizing with the UFW since 2022 and Lynn-Ette has refused to recognize the union. The struggle to free and return all 14 workers has so far only had partial success. The UFW writes in a press release that “2 additional farm workers out of the 14 Lynn-Ette workers detained by ICE in Albion, N.Y., on May 2, 2025, were released from ICE custody on bond. This brings a total of 3 workers who have since been released. Regrettably, at least 5 workers have also been deported to Mexico or Guatemala. 6 remain in ICE custody.”
This is just one of many examples of what has been happening to workers across the country who are a vital part of sustaining the lives of everyone in the U.S. For a brief moment there were signs that businesses employing undocumented workers might be worrying that the raids could affect access to inexpensive labor. Was Trump feeling the pressure when he took to Truth Social to say, “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.” Trump concluded, “This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
But whatever he had been thinking, just days after issuing a reprieve on hotel and agricultural workers, Trump reversed course—showing the erratic nature of his administration.
Another type of attack from the federal government
Raids and repression of demonstrations have been the hallmark of ICE, police, and military activity. Now the federal government is trying a new approach to silence opposition. The Republican Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, is leading an investigation of political and community organizations that threatens to disrupt and oppress some of the groups who have been very active in the movement. Dozens of groups have been informed of the pending investigation. Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and Union del Barrio are three notable targets of Hawley. Hawley informed CHIRLA, “Credible reporting now suggests that your organization has provided logistical support and financial resources to individuals engaged in these disruptive actions.” He continued, “Let me be clear: bankrolling civil unrest is not protected speech. It is aiding and abetting criminal conduct.”
The danger for these organizations is very real. Organized labor must not only defend its members but also stand with all immigrant rights organizations facing investigation by the federal government. Failure to incorporate these attacks into the broader defense efforts will only come back to haunt the unions as the Trump administration increases the repression of free speech and organizing. It’s clear just from a few examples that attacks on immigrants, unions, and the solidarity movement are a dire issue for organized labor. What comes next to build the movement?
Build a mass united front movement to defend civil liberties
The sectors of organized labor who are already in motion around the struggle for immigrant rights must organize together with social justice and community organizations to build a united front against the attacks on immigrants, working people, and their organizations.
In Los Angeles, SEIU local 721 launched the “Summer of Resistance,” a month-long immigrant rights campaign that they say includes, “UTLA, UFCW 324, UFCW 770, Teamsters Local 396, the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), CHIRLA, LA United Front, KIWA Workers for Justice and a variety of clergy members from CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic justice). The effort will focus on rapid response, know-your-rights training and teach-ins, storytelling and digital campaigns, mutual aid and support, resistance art, prayer vigils and daily public fasts.”
There is also the Labor for Democracy (L4D) effort that includes co-founders UFCW Local 3000 in Seattle, the Chicago Federation of Teachers, and Local 1199 of SEIU UHWE. Many of the major unions as well as local unions are supporting L4D with the goal of coordinating efforts to “stop the Trump-MAGA threats to our rights and liberties.” Significantly, unions supporting L4D are not shying away in their call for solidarity with student-worker Palestine solidarity activists like Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, who were some of the first to be snatched by ICE agents.
Then there is the call by the United Auto Workers (UAW) for unions to line up their contracts to expire simultaneously on May 1, 2028. UAW states, “After the historic success of the Stand Up Strike in 2023, UAW President Shawn Fain called on the rest of the labor movement to join our union in preparing to strike on May Day 2028. May Day is the international worker’s day, and it’s our opportunity to create a crisis for the billionaire class to win more for all of us. We know that when workers align their fights to the same timeline, we have more leverage than we do alone. What if we didn’t just do that in a corporate chain or one union, but across the country and the labor movement? Now is the time to get ready to create that crisis for the bosses.”
While these efforts clearly represent a positive step toward common activities around immigrant, democratic rights, and civil liberties, the movement still needs a genuine class-struggle leadership that includes rank-and-file members in decision making at every level. We need a labor movement that can mobilize millions of workers in the streets and shut down key sectors of the economy.
Union and non-union workers alike must be wondering: where is the AFL-CIO leadership? Why is the main union federation in the U.S. not calling for a general strike or even a mass march on Washington, D.C., that could bring Trump’s attacks to an immediate halt? Why has the AFL-CIO not called an emergency congress of labor, where unions and their members could democratically discuss and vote on a plan to stop the raids, defend our unions, and protect our rights?
What options do class-conscious union activists have to politicize and win their unions to a class-struggle perspective? Real militant and democratic working-class leadership could be the catalyst for a meaningful opposition to authoritarianism and lead to the construction of a mass workers’ party.
Build a class-struggle left-wing in the unions!
The history of the labor movement is filled with successful struggles of rank-and-file-led initiatives, and it is also filled with betrayals by union bureaucrats who try to squash the self-organization of the workers. The path toward building a fighting union is a complex struggle that takes steady and continuous efforts to go through experiences with rank-and-file coworkers. These experiences will show exactly how far the union leadership is willing to go in the course of a struggle against the bosses or government. The first step is as simple as starting conversations with your coworkers on the shop floor.
Trade unionists looking to transform their unions into democratic fighting organizations can build from campaigns like L4D or by organizing for the defense of David Huerta, Lewelyn Dixon, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and the 14 agricultural workers detained by ICE. Each of these cases gives union members the opportunity to first win support on the shop floor through daily discussions and then present resolutions with plans of action in their union meetings. Every discussion and effort, whether successful or not, drives forward the process of politicizing life on the shop floor and in the union. Trade-union activists must work both inside and outside their unions in conjunction with social justice organizations. In this way, union activists can begin to bring organized labor into the orbit of social struggles while bringing social struggles into the life of the union.
Many union leaders think the only way to engage union members is through bread-and-butter economic issues like wages and benefits. But this is not necessarily true. It is often the case that union members become more active when engaged with actions outside the shop that address political issues that also deeply impact their lives.
By political issues, we don’t mean campaigning for Democratic Party candidates. In fact, the most effective way for working-class organizations to build the movement is by keeping their efforts independent of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party only wants three things from union workers—money, votes, and to demobilize independent efforts that could ultimately lead to strikes and more militant actions that impact the bosses’ profits. The Democratic and Republican parties represent the capitalist class. Workers have nothing to gain by collaborating with managers in the workplace, so why should they settle for collaborating with the two parties that manage U.S. capitalism? For workers to truly take on the two main capitalist parties, they must find a path toward forming their own party, a labor party.
The construction of a labor party or even the call for a general strike might not be on the immediate agenda for the working class. But we can’t wait to take action. Trade-union activists must be at every “No Kings” mobilization, immigrant rights rally, Pride march, Labor for Democracy event, anti-police brutality action, or anywhere else that the working class is in motion and it is possible to meet other like-minded labor activists to continue building a class-struggle left wing inside the labor movement.
