Immigration is not just a “border issue.” It is a front line in the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, and it is directly tied to the US drive toward imperialist war.
The ruling class uses anti-immigrant propaganda to divide workers at home and prepare for capitalist wars abroad. Scapegoating immigrants isn’t random. It’s a tool to create the false sense of “national unity” they need when they want us to fight and die for their profits.
Think about the world we live in now: militarized borders, domestic surveillance, detention centers, and mass deportations. These are not just attacks on immigrants. They are test runs for broader repression. The same police, surveillance, and military infrastructure that terrorizes immigrants today can and will be turned against all workers tomorrow. This is how fascist repression grows—and how the war machine is built.
ICWP is fighting for a world without borders and for communism, where no worker is criminalized for where they were born and the entire working class unites against imperialist wars and capitalist exploitation.
On the weekend of the No Kings marches, a friend called to tell me about one near me. I attended. When I saw her next, she smiled and said, “I knew you’d go,” because she knows I’m a communist. She went on to tell me about how a lady that usually sells flowers on a corner is no longer there.
In the following weeks, I was hearing almost daily how ICE raids were personally affecting people I work with. One young man told me he quit his job because he was afraid. His family was also afraid for him. He has anxiety and became so fearful that he stopped leaving his home.
Another friend shared that she is a US citizen, but growing up as the darkest-skinned person in her family left her with shame and fear. Now, she worried that her darker skin as a Mexican woman would make her a target in these raids. These stories show how deeply this repression touches people’s lives.
But we also know history. Immigrant struggles have often sparked broader working-class movements. When immigrant workers fight back, it inspires solidarity, and it challenges the system at its weakest point.
We should discuss how anti-immigrant propaganda and policies are connected to US war preparations abroad. How the criminalization and repression of immigrants lay the foundation for fascism and imperialist war. And most importantly, what practical steps we can take in the next months to support immigrant workers and oppose this wave of repression.
Turning theory into practice. Defending immigrants and building solidarity is defending the working class—and it’s a step toward dismantling the system that creates war, borders, and exploitation in the first place.
—Comrade N
