See update at end of the article.

On January 12, in Eagle Pass, Texas, 33-year-old Victerma de la Sancha Cerros and her two children—10-year-old Yorlei Rubi, and 8-year-old Jonathan Agustín Briones—drowned in the Rio Grande (the river between the U.S. and Mexico). Not only did Texas National Guard troops do nothing to save their lives, the Department of Homeland Security claims that the Texas National Guard prevented Border Patrol agents from intervening to provide emergency medical assistance. The Texas National Guard say they were contacted by Border Patrol after the migrants drowned.

So exactly what happened is not clear. What is clear is that these deaths were completely preventable, and the conflict between the Texas National Guard and the Border Patrol is a political powder keg.  

Meanwhile, just this Saturday, a migrant man drowned in the same area. His identity is yet unknown.

So here you see it: More and more vicious oppression being visited on the masses of people by the very system that is driving this mass migration. And a potentially violent clash among the rulers over how to carry out that oppression. But where this goes depends on what we—and what you—do.

Right now, as the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has said:

Everything depends on bringing forward a revolutionary people, from among the most bitterly oppressed, and all parts of society, first in the thousands and then in the millions, as a powerful revolutionary force, organized from the start and consistently with a country-wide perspective, impacting all of society and changing the terms of how masses of people see things and how every institution has to respond. Everything must be focused now on actually bringing forward and organizing this revolutionary force.

The question, urgently posed, is will YOU be part of that force. 

The Horror That Immigrants Confront

Put yourself in Victerma’s shoes. 

Not much is now known about her and her two children. But in many ways, she was probably not much different from millions of people catching hell every day in ghettos and barrios of this country. She was probably like millions of dispossessed, impoverished people around the world desperately seeking a way to live. So desperate that she carried her two children into a dangerous river. So desperate she tried to get to a riverbank lined with razor wire and rifle-toting soldiers who regard her as their enemy.

Think about what she confronted: a militarized death zone with razor wire fences and enormous walls. Drones prowling the air, patrol boats cruising the river, motion sensors in the ground. Tens of thousands of heavily armed federal, state, and local police, National Guard soldiers, Border Patrol, and white supremacist vigilantes on the lookout for human beings they call “illegals.” 

Countless thousands have died trying to reach the border. At each step they face renewed terror by the very system that forced them to flee their imperialist-dominated homelands in the first place—fleeing climate change, war and hunger.¹ 

Intense Conflict Between the Rulers 

The area around Eagle Pass has become one of the most active—and contested—crossing points for migrants. In October and November 2023, more than 81,000 immigrants crossed into Eagle Pass. In December, 302,000 people attempted to enter at that crossing. 

It has also been a point of an intense fight between Texas and the Biden administration. 

Two years ago, Greg Abbott, Texas’s governor, initiated a fascist clampdown called “Operation Lone Star.”²  This is a multi-agency onslaught of repression, militarization, mass arrests, and incarceration along the border. This includes lining the Rio Grande with giant floating barriers lined with circular saws and wrapped in barbed wire. This is supposed to be a “deterrent” to migrants but has turned into a watery death trap.

Last week, the Texas National Guard seized control of 2.5 miles along the border, which includes the 50-acre Shelby Park. They kicked out Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—an armed group of federal agents responsible for policing the border, mass deportations and expulsions. The Texas National Guard put up fencing all around the park and is forcibly preventing anyone else from coming into the park or that section of the Rio Grande. This again includes the CBP, which is supposed to have jurisdiction over the U.S. borders.

This week, Texas authorities have started arresting migrants who enter the U.S. for “criminal trespass.” These Texas authorities are in direct violation of U.S. law which mandates that migrants be allowed to cross the border and apply for asylum in the U.S. 

According to the U.S. Constitution and long-standing law, the federal government—and not the states—determines immigration and border policy. This is not being covered in the mainstream press, but what is unfolding in Eagle Pass is no less than a constitutional crisis.

The Looming Clash

The crisis in Texas highlights the sharpening differences between the Republi-fascists and Democrats—differences that outline a looming clash.

Trump promises “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” He intends to end birthright citizenship (meaning children with undocumented parents will themselves be undocumented, even if they were born in the U.S.). He said he wants to build large-scale concentration camps at the border in Texas and separate families at the border as formal policy. 

The fascists wrap all this in straight-up Nazi-talk. Trump calls immigrants “criminals, rapists, and pedophiles” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Abbott said in a recent interview, “The only thing that we're not doing is we're not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.” While not calling for anything outright, the genocidal intention of this is clear enough for those who want to hear it. 

Ironically, while giving lip service to the humanity of migrants, Biden has actually expelled more migrants than any other president in history, and has expanded the militarization at the border. 

Despite this, the fascists accuse Biden and the Democrats of having an “open border” policy and are demanding much more repressive measures now. 

A Conflict Coming to a Boil

Relying on the courts, Biden has tried to stop Abbott's open fascist rebellion. Last July, the Department of Justice sued Texas to remove the barriers in the Rio Grande. And just last week, a fascist-packed federal court (the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals) ruled that the barriers can stay in place while they hear the case. This week, Biden asked the fascist-packed U.S. Supreme Court to intervene to stop Texas from violating federal law. We don't know where this will go.

But meanwhile, armed agents representing different sections of the ruling class of this system are facing off. Even a minor incident—set off by anger, accident or misunderstanding—could trigger a major armed crisis between ruling class forces fighting over something that concentrates the whole direction of society. And this could potentially unfold in a way where armed fascists—who are itching for civil war—began openly participating. 

Left to itself, this polarization is a nightmare—with the two sides fighting over how to maintain their system of capitalism-imperialism. But we can't afford to—and we don't have to— “leave this to itself.”

The fact is there actually is a liberating answer to this in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America authored by Bob Avakian (see the box "The Revolutionary Solution").

And right now, everyone who wants to see a better world needs to join with the revcoms to be part of changing the polarization—for the revolution that's needed, and more possible exactly because of these clashes and the whole way society is being ripped apart. 

We need to race from behind³ to catch up to this sharpening situation bringing forward thousands to represent as a revolutionary force so that this real revolutionary alternative is increasingly known about, and looked to, by millions of people. 

Now is the time!

***

Update January 24

Since publication, the situation at the Texas/Mexico border has intensified.

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in a close 5-to-4 decision that the federal government could remove the barbed wire that Texas placed all over the border, including in the Rio Grande. They didn't make a final decision about the legality of these barbed wire barriers, which will be heard by the fascist-packed Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on February 6. 

This Supreme Court ruling was met with a major fascist outcry—with the leading fascists from Texas basically saying they won't comply with the Supreme Court ruling. 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott posted, “This is not over.” And that he intends to “prevent the Biden Admin from destroying our property.” Abbott is arguing that removing the barbed wire that has been injuring migrants who attempt to cross is “destroying our property.” This stand was echoed by Attorney General Ken Paxton and the spokesperson for the Texas Department of “Public Safety,” Chris Olivarez, who tweeted that the state will continue to use barbed wire. 

Fascist representatives from across the country are calling for Texas to disobey the Supreme Court's order. They are calling the wave of desperate people fleeing their homelands for basic survival “an invasion,” whipping up racist hysteria while basically readying people for war. Rep. Clay Higgins, a fascist congressman from Louisiana said, “The feds are staging a civil war, and Texas should stand their ground.” Fascist lunatic with a fan base of millions, Marjorie Taylor Greene, said in an interview, "We literally saw a ruling [from the Supreme Court] that's going to put the federal government at war with the state of Texas... I think Texas needs to stand their ground and we should join Texas in their fight against the federal government to defend their state, defend their border, defend their people...”

Fucker Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, tweeted that “everyone in power, from the White House, to the hedge fund managers, to the Supreme Court of the United States has decided to destroy the country by allowing it to be invaded. That leaves the population to defend itself. Where are the men of Texas? Why aren’t they protecting their state and the nation?”

There are a ton of fascists on various message boards and on social media responding to the call. According to Vice News, a Proud Boy chapter wrote on Telegram, “We’ve all been betrayed and sold out by an illegal government that’s sole mission is [to] destroy our traditions, freedoms and way of life. We refuse to concede our nation to the communists. America is counting on you to hold the line.”

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has yet to rule on an emergency request from the Biden administration to force the Texas National Guard to open up parts of the border where they are preventing Border Patrol from operating.

We do not know where all this will end up. But as we wrote above, “…armed agents representing different sections of the ruling class of this system are facing off. Even a minor incident—set off by anger, accident or misunderstanding—could trigger a major armed crisis between ruling class forces fighting over something that concentrates the whole direction of society.”

The need to seize on this sharpening clash for a real revolution to emancipate humanity is NOW!