Socialist Alternative stands unequivocally against mass deportations. The working class is international because capitalism is international. The economic and social crises caused by the ruling class forces workers to abandon their homes, risk their lives and split up their families in order to flee poverty and war, and to seek safety and employment. Bosses exploit the workers who do make it across the border with low wages and dangerous working conditions. Scapegoating immigrants is one of many divide-and-rule strategies used by the ruling class to force competition among different racial, ethnic and religious groups, which lowers the living standards for all. It is for the benefit of the entire international working class that we fight against deportations and stand in solidarity with all workers and immigrants, documented or undocumented. Socialist Alternative will stand alongside our neighbors and coworkers facing the threat of deportation.

Capitalism’s Immigration Crisis

Immigration was a top-three issue among voters leading up to the 2024 presidential election. When Donald Trump declared that Haitian immigrants were “eating cats and dogs” on the debate stage, Kamala Harris responded by arguing she was tougher on immigration. The real crisis of immigration today isn’t one of jobs and crime, the way Donald Trump and the right wing claim. 

Mass immigration is driven by capitalism, a system that runs on the gears of poverty and war. War and political violence are a direct cause of global migration, alongside economic conditions exacerbated by the lasting impacts of colonialism. The same right-wing forces that decry and scapegoat immigrants shamelessly aid and abet the current drive towards increased war for control over the world’s raw materials and the working class’s labor, which in turn causes further displacement and migration. 

As of May 2024, at least 120 million people have been displaced, about half of whom crossed an international border in that process. In 2022, 5.1 million people immigrated to the EU, more than double the number from 2021. There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Tom Homan, Trump’s “Border Czar,” has stated that raids will begin on day one and implied that to keep families together they would deport legal resident children with their undocumented family members. 

Trump promises to carry out the largest mass deportation in history starting on day one of his next term. He has confirmed that he plans to use the military to carry them out and right-wing militias have freely offered to assist in these deportations, underlying the urgent danger that immigrant workers will face when Trump is back in office. Just like when Trump attempted to implement what was known as the “Muslim ban” during his first administration, it will take concerted mass actions of immigrant and native-born workers and young people to prevent attacks on immigrants and get Trump to back down. 

Organize The Unorganized

Many immigrants work in traditionally unionized sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing and construction, though some studies point to immigrant workers having lower rates of unionization than native-born workers. A large percentage of workers in some of the most unorganized and exploitative workplaces are immigrants, like in agriculture and the service industry. 

Immigrants make up 68% of agricultural workers in the US and experience an on-the-job death rate almost 6 times higher than the national average. While we’ve seen more unionization efforts in recent years, both the service industry and the agricultural sector rest at around a 1% unionization rate.

The bosses need immigrants as a cheaper, more easily exploited source of labor that brings down wages for all workers. Attacks on immigrant workers are used as downward pressure on wages for all workers, one of the many ways bosses create divisions in the workplace and exploit them for profit. Nonunion workplaces use immigrant labor to undercut unionized competitors, which underscores even more the importance of fighting to unionize every job.

In order to rebuild a fighting labor movement, a crucial task will be to wage an all-sided campaign to organize the unorganized, which must include immigrant workers. The bosses are working night and day to divide us, so the labor movement must be a powerful uniting force. We need labor leaders who reject right-wing rhetoric about immigrants “stealing jobs” and using up resources. The only ones with the power to pay workers less and make our lives worse, regardless of where we are born, are the bosses and the billionaires!

What Can Workers Do To Fight Deportations?

A key front in fighting against deportations will be at the point of attack: in the workplace and in our communities and schools. Unions should take the lead in setting up defense committees to mobilize and coordinate the wider working class to stop deportations. In schools where the district doesn’t already have an established policy not to release information or cooperate with Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, all educators’ union locals should fight for it.

I’m a teacher in Seattle, where there is a protection written into the school district’s policy that we will not let ICE into the classroom or school, except in very rare circumstances. But even where protections exist, they can always be scaled back. We can’t rely on drawn-out legal battles or the goodwill of our administrators, especially when Trump is willing to withhold federal funding. Calls to defend immigrants need to be linked to calls to tax billionaires to fund schools, jobs, housing and healthcare.

Educators have one of the highest unionization rates among professions in the US at 33%. Unions offer some protections for immigrants who work in schools, many of whom work in lower-paid positions as bilingual instructional assistants and custodians, but unions will still need to play an active role to defend these workers and their families from the myriad of potential attacks Trump can unleash, even in cities like Seattle.

Hospitals will be another target for ICE agents, camping out in Emergency Rooms and asking hospitals for records of patients who don’t have a Social Security number. Healthcare workers can lead the way in taking direct action, for instance by refusing to report patients or share information with the authorities.

All unions should refuse to let ICE onto job sites where their members work and prepare their members to walk off the job if a detained immigrant coworker doesn’t show up, demanding they not be deported. There were 14.4 million union members in the US in 2023, and they could leverage their power and organization against the bosses to stop ICE.

Mass Action, Not Democrats, Will Stop Trump’s Attacks

Nonunion workers must also take action to push back ICE and defend immigrants too, while being aware of the unique dangers of organizing in an unorganized workplace and of their lack of protections without a union. But there are ways to overcome these obstacles. For instance, workers greatly decrease the risk of retaliation if a large number of coworkers take action together. If a worker is retaliated against, a job defense action can be effective, especially with the support of the community. This kind of organizing, aimed at forging solidarity, can even prepare the ground for a union drive at a later stage.

Undocumented immigrants won’t be the only ones who will suffer at the hands of more militarized police forces, expanded private prisons, and an emboldened ICE agenda. Those stuck at any stage of the byzantine immigration system, whether they have a visa, green card, or have gained citizenship, should join a collective fightback against these attacks.

The second Trump administration will be more emboldened than the first time; we could even see mass detention camps as ICE starts arresting people without anywhere for them to go. Should this take place, unions must link up to oppose these camps and lead mass protests against them. Protests can block entrances, unionized workers can refuse deliveries, and workers employed to build, maintain or run the camps should walk off the job. 

We cannot be complacent and wait for Democratic politicians or their affiliated NGOs to protect immigrants. Obama and Biden deported millions, and Harris threw immigrants under the bus during the election. It will be up to working people to refuse to cooperate with ICE, take mass direct action, and go on strike when necessary.

Organizing actions like these can seem difficult, even impossible, but small successes fighting oppression in the workplace can set inspiring examples for other workers. Just recently, a Socialist Alternative member and trans union letter carrier organized her coworkers to defend the right to use her restroom of choice (see p.10).

In Sweden, our sister section of International Socialist Alternative (ISA) has played a role in organizing against a new law that would mandate that Swedish workers act as whistleblowers on undocumented immigrants in the workplace. Although this attack was not completely defeated, it has been drastically scaled back since unions and workers have fought back with rallies and demonstrations. For example, “eight out of ten teachers believe that they would be prepared to defy the law regardless of the legal consequences,” according to a recent article from the section’s newspaper, Offensiv. 

Lessons From The 2006 Day Without An Immigrant Strike

We should take inspiration from the Day Without An Immigrant protests, a heroic one-day strike on May Day in 2006 when one million immigrant workers took to the streets in response to a wave of anti-immigrant attacks and mass deportations under G.W. Bush. 

Millions of people staged walkouts and took to the streets after Congress introduced a bill that would make immigration a felony. The law would have made aiding an undocumented worker a crime and threatened mass arrests of teachers offering English as a second language, doctors treating injured undocumented workers, community centers offering services to immigrants, and more.

The mass outrage over this bill came as, for the first time ever, undocumented immigrants were being sent to die in US uniforms in the US war for oil in Iraq, but not given basic rights like the ability to vote or access to many social services.

That bill did not become law, thanks in large part to the massive protests. But it was no thanks to the Democratic Party and organizations affiliated with it, who strongly opposed the call for the May 1 strike. The Democratic Party was busy supporting the war in Iraq and a large part of Bush’s viciously anti-working class domestic agenda. Had workers and young people listened to The Democratic Party and not taken action, more horrific attacks on immigrants and all workers could have followed. This is a crucial lesson for today: the immigrants’ rights movement will be run into the ground if it is bound hand and foot by the Democratic Party or its affiliates.

Native-born and immigrant workers alike need a new working-class party that fights for our interests against the billionaires and their wars around the world. We need a party that will fight for free universal healthcare, a much higher federal minimum wage, a massive expansion of quality affordable housing, and much more.

Fight Anti-Immigrant Attacks With Solidarity

Ultimately, the ruling class is terrified that the working class will unite to fight back and take on this broken, corrupt system. Most of us barely scrape by while a few at the top get rich off of our hard work. Despite what you’ll hear on corporate media outlets, there is more than enough to go around for all of us—society’s wealth and resources are being hoarded by a tiny minority of the population. Under an internationally-coordinated, socialist planned economy, we could ensure a much higher standard of living for everyone, eliminating the very foundations for the oppression and scapegoating of minority groups, like immigrants.

In the coming months, the question of working-class solidarity with immigrant workers will become extremely concrete. This question is existential for the future of the labor movement. If the unions and their leaderships fail to take up this fight in a decisive way—both through aggressive organizing drives and in worker defense campaigns—they risk reversing the relative gains they’ve made over the past several years and undermining the foundation of solidarity that will be necessary to reach new heights in the coming decade. 

If asked directly about immigration, most labor leaders will express run-of-the-mill solidarity. But when the Teamsters’ president Sean O’Brien explicitly addresses his vision to the “American worker,” or when the ILA’s president Harold Daggett proclaims that ILA stands for “I love America,” they actively promote the very nationalism the ruling class uses to divide workers. By accepting the logic of “America first,” these labor leaders make no challenge to the flagrantly xenophobic rhetoric of Trump and his ilk who have the ear of many of the rank-and-file union members they represent. 

Even less reactionary labor leaders will talk the talk, but are unlikely to take the kind of decisive action necessary, as outlined above, without pressure. The stakes for the next four years are high: the strength of the labor movement depends on its capacity for unity, and failure to fight back against attacks like those coming down against trans people and immigrants could mean a fracturing of the working class. 

Labor leaders have set their sights far too low for the coming years, and we must soberly acknowledge that it will require pressure and initiative from below to build the resistance we need. This means being ready to organize and mobilize community defense committees to respond to reports of attempted deportations, shut down worksites to prevent arrests, and sit in at homes to stop evictions.

The labor movement and the working class as a whole cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the attacks that are coming. We don’t know the form these deportations will take, so it’s crucial that unions and community organizations start making preparations now to fight back in a flexible and coordinated way. Trump is hoping to steamroll the opposition on day one, but we are here to say: when we fight, we can win!

Socialist Alternative says:

• No to Trump’s plans for immigrant detentions and deportations! No border wall expansion! Immediate citizenship rights for all undocumented immigrants.
• Build a movement that unites immigrants and US-born workers against the billionaire class to fight for good union jobs, social housing, and free high quality education for all.
• Refuse to cooperate with Trump’s agenda – get organized to fight for real sanctuary cities and build emergency deportation defense committees in workplaces, unions, and neighborhoods.
• Unions should begin now to organize emergency deportation defense networks to shut down workplace raids by ICE and urgently respond to community raids as well.
• Build a movement against the destructive policies of US imperialism around the world that drive working class people to flee their home countries. We need an international struggle for socialism to fight for a world that works for us, not the ruling elite.