California Governor Jerry Brown signed two bills in October that are being trumpeted as "helping immigrants." He is acting because the House of Representatives has refused to pass Obama's Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR). "While Washington is waffling on immigration, California is forging ahead. I'm not waiting," said Brown.
The California legislature and Brown passed a bill granting driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants—starting in 2015—after they pass the written and driving tests. They will have to buy car insurance. But these licenses will be marked to show that the person whose name and picture is on it is undocumented.
The second is the "California Trust Act," which limits the state's cooperation with "Secure Communities," a fascist federal program that allows ICE to screen fingerprints taken by local police, and to check immigration status of those arrested to hold and deport them. Brown refused to sign a similar bill last year because he said it didn't include enough exceptions for which immigrants would be held for deportation!
The version that the legislature passed and Brown signed includes a longer list of exceptions, including anyone convicted of a felony, several specific misdemeanors, or "a crime threatening public safety," an obvious reference to youth that the racist cops accuse of being gang members. The number of deportations carried out during Obama's presidency will soon reach 2 million people, more than any other US President has deported! The "Secure Communities" program led to many of those deportations by requiring that immigrants arrested for any reason be held for ICE checks.
Now some of the same people who supported that program, like Janet Napolitano, former head of ICE, campaigned to get the Trust Act passed.
She and the imperialists she represents need the same families they have terrorized with mass deportations to trust them and their racist fascist system. These US bosses don't want so many immigrants deported because they need them to be hard working, patriotic slave laborers in their factories, especially war industries. They also need immigrant workers to patriotically send their more than four million native-born children into the military to serve the imperialists as cannon fodder as they pivot to Asia and prepare for war against China.
For now, unable to pass the CIR, which has been stalled by their capitalist domestic rivals like the Tea Party, the imperialist politicians are passing "piece-meal" bills to try to calm the justified anger and mistrust that immigrant workers have, to keep immigrant workers in the US as low paid workers and soldiers, and pressure Congress to pass CIR. To overcome the opposition their plans face in Congress, conservative Republican businessmen are planning to withdraw funding from Tea Party candidates who oppose CIR.
But we should not trust any capitalist-imperialist. They want us to march behind their flag: the US imperialist flag of racism, sexism, exploitation and mass murder. No bosses' flag is our flag, and no law will liberate workers from racist capitalist wage slavery and terror.
Only communist revolution will put an end to racist terror, wage slavery, borders and nations. When immigrant workers mobilize for communism, they can and will give crucial leadership in the factories, the military and schools, to the fight of all workers to put an end to the bosses' exploitation and their wars with communist revolution.
We workers, immigrants and citizens alike, need to put our trust in the international working class mobilized for communism. By spreading Red Flag, we will mobilize our friends, families and co-workers to collectively build the communist revolution we need. Organized into ICWP, we will plan, organize and fight for a communist world where workers will be welcome everywhere and mobilized to contribute to meet our class's needs. Join us!

Red Flag Impacts Immigration March with Communist Ideas

A group of youth, comrades and friends of ICWP, participated in a march demanding U.S. Immigration Reform. This reform is being driven by the capitalist government. Their plans are to assure the servitude of millions of immigrant workers in different industries like agriculture, garment and especially the war industry. They plan to use the children of immigrant workers as future soldiers in their wars, especially in the war against China.
Our plan is to mobilize the masses for communism in all of these industries. And most importantly to join the army and organize within it so that soldiers unite with the international working class and make revolutionary communist war against capitalism. In this process Red Flag plays an important role and that is why we have to make sure that it reaches all of these places. Waiting for the march to start, a worker said, "Communism doesn't work anywhere. Tell me of one place where it has worked." His friends were around him. "Communism has only been practiced for brief periods in history, like in 'war communism,' but in the end, it was socialism that was established in Russia, China, Cuba and other places.
Socialism doesn't eliminate wages, privilege or the market. The government administers state capitalism," responded a comrade.
"What do you want with communism?" asked his friend.
"We want the masses of workers to control all of the means of production, the factories, the land and all of the industries necessary to maintain life, without any owners," said the comrade.
A small group of workers were listening intently to the exchange. "You want to take away the factories, the land and everything that the owners have, but they have worked hard to get it," answered the one that had first spoken.
"These capitalist owners are criminals. Everything they have has been gotten on the basis of the exploitation of workers, and this is a criminal act. We want a communist world without borders.
Then all of the production necessary for humanity will be organized collectively by all of the workers. We will all receive according to our needs and contribute according to our commitment," responded the comrade. In the end, all the workers in the group took Red Flag.
In the march the youth played an active role. They helped distribute 900 Red Flag newspapers. A young student comrade declared, "I experienced a moment with the ICWP marching over two miles and distributing Red Flag. It was awesome.
People were motivating us by saying, '¡Qué viva el comunismo!' (Long Live Communism!) A lot of people took the Red Flag. Of course there were some negative comments but it didn't stop me and my comrades. A woman said to us, 'You guys look great. Can I take a picture of you?' Explaining Red Flag to people was a good experience. Not only were they learning, but I was too."