The demonization, criminalization and deportations of immigrants and the militarization of the border

The borders of this country were first established through war, and repeatedly expanded through armed conquest of land, especially in wars against the native peoples and a war against Mexico in the middle of the 19th century. This war resulted in over half of the territory of Mexico coming under the control of the U.S.; and it was fought, on the U.S. side, for the purpose of expanding slavery as well as greatly enlarging its territory. Since the end of the 19th century, the U.S. empire has been expanded not only by seizing countries (such as the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam) as colonies or near-colonies, but also through invasions and other means, installing rulers dependent on and obedient to the U.S. Today, the U.S. has military forces and “intelligence” operatives stationed in over 100 countries around the world, and it provides military backing, and other aid, to governments, including brutally oppressive regimes, that it maintains as part of the U.S. empire. And, relying on its military as well as its economic power as coercion, U.S. imperialism not only continues to politically dominate but to economically exploit and plunder countries throughout the Third World. Again, the countries of Latin America, and in particular Mexico, El Salvador and other parts of Central America, and the Caribbean—which the imperialists of the U.S. arrogantly regard as their “back yard”—have been the special targets of all this. Not only has the U.S. repeatedly carried out military invasions and coups to overthrow governments there, and backed murderous dictatorships with their bloodthirsty death squads terrorizing the people, but it has imposed economic “agreements” that have further bled these countries and intensified the misery of the masses of people there. (For example, contrary to the lies spouted by Donald Trump, NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement], engineered under Bill Clinton’s presidency, has not resulted in the U.S. getting “screwed,” but actually has resulted in the ruin of large numbers of farmers in Mexico and increased the number of desperately poor people there, which has been a major factor in driving many people from Mexico to the United States. Trump only wants to make all this even worse.)

For all these reasons, along with other factors such as global warming and the accompanying crisis of water shortage in many countries, there are tens of millions of refugees in the world today, driven from their home countries and seeking asylum, or simply a means to survive, in the U.S. (and in capitalist countries in Europe). And, given all this, it is the height of hypocrisy, and of cruelty, for the U.S. government, and in particular the Trump/Pence regime, to talk about “the right of countries to secure their borders!”—and bray about “building a wall” to do so—let alone to denounce the masses of immigrants from a country like Mexico as rapists, drug dealers, and murderers, and to enact such barbaric measures as separating children, even very young children, from their parents if they are attempting to enter the U.S. without the required papers, and even if they are seeking asylum from persecution and violence.

Here again, while determined and massive struggle needs to be waged against these inhuman actions by the U.S. (and other oppressive governments), it should be clear that there can be no solution, under the system of capitalism-imperialism, to the situation involving masses of immigrants and refugees. The only solution lies in the revolution to overthrow this system—a revolution aiming not just to abolish oppression, exploitation, poverty, and misery in one country but having as its fundamental goal the abolition of all this throughout the world, and the elimination of all borders and boundaries that erect walls between different parts of humanity.