ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) welcomed the New Year by raiding and terrorizing our communities. Though raids won’t solve the problem of immigration, it does serve to terrorize our communities and keep them in check, so that people don’t protest injustice and organize for their human rights.
Immigration is not the problem, capitalism is and its policies to extract profits for the corporations. Worldwide migration is emerging under the new conditions of globalization of the market. Globalization is the process of dismantling national borders and creating an international production process based on an international market to guarantee maximum profits for the global capitalist.
With globalization, production of goods and services flows to the low-wage areas while internationalized labor naturally flows to the high-wage areas. As a consequence, the greater the globalization, the greater the immigration. This is economic reality.
Capitalism has globalized the economy without globalizing the workers i.e. investments, services and goods to migrate freely while the workers can’t. Workers will continue to migrate to survive whether from economic crisis or war. In doing so literally millions of workers are becoming aware of their class interests.
Immigration sounds the political death knell of the capitalist system. The slogan “Workers of the world — Unite!” takes on new meaning. The birthing of a world class struggle brightens an otherwise dark and dangerous tomorrow.
Know Your Rights
The community’s basic rights, with or without permit to be in the country, are:
- The right to not open the door and to demand to see a warrant
- The right to remain silent
- Refusing to sign any documents
- To prepare an emergency contingency plan with basic instructions in case of an immigration raid
- No matter where ICE is, exercise your rights and remember you can fight your deportation case
