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Vol. 81/No. 7 February 20, 2017
(editorial)
Join the protests! Demand amnesty!
The Militant urges our readers to join the ongoing protests against
President Donald Trump’s executive orders barring entry to the U.S. from
seven majority-Muslim countries and preparing to increase the
criminalization and deportation of workers without acceptable papers who
are already here.
Bring signs demanding, “Amnesty for all undocumented workers in the
U.S.!” Join Socialist Workers Party candidates and members at these
actions explaining why fighting for amnesty is necessary to unite the
working class and to chart a course to take political power. Join the
SWP in speaking out against any sort of religious test for entry into
the U.S. or discrimination based on country of origin.
The ruling class, aided by their government in Washington, depends on
the superexploited status of workers they criminalize and call
“illegal.” This is key to their ability to maintain sharp divisions in
the working class — to drive down wages and deepen the exploitation of
millions. They try to pit us against one another in competition for jobs
and to take our focus off our common enemy — the propertied capitalist
class.
The rulers count on workers without legal status to stay in the shadows,
accept their lot and refrain from fighting to join unions to raise wages
and defend their conditions on the job. The constant fear of deportation
is a powerful weapon in the rulers’ arsenal.
The fight for amnesty is a life-and-death question for the labor
movement. It’s essential to build the unity, self-confidence and
class-consciousness working people need to overthrow the dog-eat-dog
capitalist system and take political power.
This, unfortunately, is not the aim of those organizing the
demonstrations today. Their intent is to try to delegitimize and take
down the Trump administration, and rebuild a more “progressive”
Democratic Party, the other party of U.S. imperialist rule. They cry
crocodile tears over Trump’s decrees, while avoiding any mention of the
anti-working-class record of the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama
administrations. Many call Trump a “fascist” and disdain those who voted
for him as racist, xenophobic “deplorables.”
But workers — Caucasian, Black or foreign-born — who voted for Trump, or
who voted for Sanders or Clinton or none-of-the-above, are searching for
a break from the economic carnage and endless imperialist wars we all
face. The Socialist Workers Party gets a hearing from all of them today.
To the young people, workers and others who are outraged at the White
House’s attacks on immigrants and refugees, the Socialist Workers Party
says, “Let’s fight together for amnesty, to organize unions. Most
important, join us to build a party that can make a revolution.”
Related articles:
Protests continue against gov’t attack on immigrants
SWP: Join protests, demand amnesty!
Yemeni bodega owners close shops, rally against travel ban
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