The deaths of hundreds of African immigrants off the coast of Italy last week made clear in the most tragic way possible the international nature of racist capitalism. Workers and their families, fleeing poverty, oppression and war in Africa, had staked their hopes on an uncertain future as unsanctioned refugees in Europe. But twice in two weeks, the overcrowded boats capsized, and hundreds of men, women, and children drowned.
Last year, one thousand seven hundred of our brothers and sisters died trying to cross to Europe from Africa. And it's not only in Africa. Dozens of workers were killed this summer in the derailment of the train they were riding from Central America through Mexico to the US. Thousands of migrants and refugees die every year, desperately trying to survive.

Communism: A World Without Borders!
In a communist society, no one will be forced to flee the land of their birth for survival. Society will be organized based on human need, rather than on the drive for profits. Everyone will have meaningful work, and we will share what we produce. If people need to relocate for personal reasons or to meet collective needs, there will be no borders to stop them. We will never fight for "national liberation," because we know that nations and borders were created to serve the capitalists and to divide the working class.

Capitalist Crisis and Civil War Bring Mass Migration and Mass Murder
The immigrants who died in the Mediterranean this month are the tip of the iceberg of a huge increase in refugees from civil wars in east Africa. Last year, just under a thousand migrants from Somalia and Eritrea0 reached southern Italy. So far this year, almost ten thousand have made the crossing.
This is like the mass migration of workers who fled Central America during the civil wars of the 1970s and 80s. Migrants to Los Angeles provided the workforce that made huge profits for the garment bosses. Hundreds of people have died every year on the journey, crossing deserts and jungles, at the hands of smugglers and cops.
The Central American immigrant stream has slowed. US and Mexican bosses have stepped up border enforcement. Capitalist crisis and high unemployment make jobs harder to find in the US.
The garment industry has shifted to Central America and other places like Bangladesh where workers are more exploited and profits are higher.

African Immigrants: Double Victims of Capitalist Crisis
Immigrants from Africa to Europe are fleeing the civil wars as well as the legacy of colonialism. Even in the boom days of the 1970s and 80s, they were never able to get into the industrial workforce. Racist laws and practices reserved those jobs for European workers.
Today, the worldwide crisis has wiped out millions of industrial jobs in Europe and led to mass mobilizations of angry pensioners and young workers. At the very moment that the crisis has brought more immigrants to Europe, the industrial jobs that European citizens had relied on are being outsourced. European workers are taking the jobs immigrants once took as dishwashers and janitors.

Workers of the World Unite!
African workers who have crossed the Mediterranean fleeing civil wars and starvation end up selling sunglasses in front of the train station in Naples, or in a refugee center in Lampedusa.
In a Berlin park this summer, immigrants were selling Red Army caps and Lenin buttons in front of statues of Marx and Engels. As the cops approached, they ran off before they could be arrested for selling these souvenirs of socialism to the tourists that capitalism had brought.
Socialism, really state capitalism, kept money, wages and national borders and it failed. The capitalist crisis which has nothing but murder and exploitation for workers has made it more urgent that we mobilize the masses for communism, and nothing less. Marx, Engels and Lenin said it: We have nothing to lose but our chains, and a world to win!