Garment Worker writes here ♦ Building Solidarity Across Borders here ♦
Immigration Reform or No, I Will Continue to Fight for a Communist World
I have been a garment worker for over 30 years. I have participated in large and small marches and actions for immigration reforms, but with a vision of a communist world without borders.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t want immigration reform, because it is a necessary reality to be able to survive in this capitalist system. A few years ago, my mother died in Mexico, but due to my immigration status, I was unable to go to her funeral. At one point, I was looking for work in other industries where there are large groups of workers, to organize the Party (ICWP), but due to the lack of legal documents I was unable to enter those industries.
During all these years, my commitment to building that new world, where there is no distinction between immigrants and citizens, and there are no nations or borders, has continued, although at times with ups and downs.
Now, President Biden is giving hope to more than 11 million workers, like me, for that legalization. But I understand that this legalization has a price: war. Biden and the liberal bosses want to win our children and ourselves to patriotism. They want us to be grateful and willing to die in their imperialist war against other imperialists like the Chinese bosses.
Creating the illusion that immigrants are being taken into account is vital to creating a deeper nationalism within many citizens, who will also be sent to die for the bosses’ profits.
Legal residence, although it would be one less problem among the hundreds of problems that workers have, does not solve our basic problems.
Only communism will put an end to borders and wage slavery. If we want to go to some part of the world it will be based on whether in that place some help is needed to produce, save lives, or learn for the good of the people. There will be no need to abandon a place where we like to be, because we will not have to go to sell our labor power to survive.
With or without immigration reform I will continue to fight for a communist world.
—Comrade in Los Angeles, USA
Let’s Shed Our Illusions
What happens when you see a crowd fight for what you want to fight for? The illusion of a better life, defying borders and the racist police system? You dare to be part of it.
The phenomenon of seeing thousands of people of all ages marching north from Central America toward the USA had an impact on many people in Mexico, during the period of the caravans in 2017. Many came out to applaud them, to give them food, water, medicine. Those in the caravans were met by bands and mariachis playing for them to ease the pain of their long journey.
They were Central American migrants, crossing Mexican territory. They broke the border barriers and police fences. But what most worried the bosses and their ideologues was that they were breaking with nationalism. They were seeing migrants and nationals as one class, the working class.
It is widely known that for years in La Fortuna, Veracruz, where the train called La Bestia passed loaded with hundreds of migrants, a group of Mexican women (Las Patronas) prepared water and food for those traveling north on the train. Feelings and actions of human and class solidarity.
This contrasts with part of the analysis of a letter recently published in Red Flag (Vol. 12 # 1) where it says, “Mexicans are extremely anti-immigrant.” The comrade based this on a survey carried out by the capitalist newspapers Washington Post (USA) and Reforma (Mexico).
Former President Trump (USA) pressured the President of Mexico López Obrador, threatening that if he did not enforce a hard line against migrants and prevent them from crossing through Mexico, Trump would put tariffs (taxes) on Mexican products going to the US.
López Obrador used the new national guard and the police as a wall to keep out more migrants. The bourgeois press launched a campaign to attack the migrants, saying that they did not obey the laws and violated national sovereignty. The poll quoted in the letter from those newspapers is part of that campaign.
The letter from the comrade in Mexico correctly shows the need to destroy borders and fight for communism. But at the same time, it shows frustration because the masses do not act against these attacks.
I believe that it is our responsibility as a Party to organize the masses to act. Everyone in the Party must plan with our friends and carry out activities. From a political discussion to a study group, to a small action. This will give us confidence that the communist-led masses can change the world.
The illusion of a better life under capitalism is just that. To the thousands of migrants and those at home I would say, organize for a communist revolution in the place where you live. That’s the way we will achieve what we need and what our class needs, to destroy the borders and build a communist world.
—Comrade in Los Angeles, USA
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