This past week Trump released the names of about 20 people he plans to place in his cabinet or in other key positions of authority when his regime takes power on January 20. 

A lot can be said about this repugnant assembly of white supremacists, Christian fascists, male supremacists, war mongers and xenophobes (people who hate “foreigners”). But the essential thing to grasp is that Trump is pulling together a crew of loyal lieutenants to implement his nightmarish fascist program in the U.S., and to reassert even more violently the U.S.’s dominant position in the world as a whole.

In this and coming articles we will focus on different components of this program, starting with Trump’s plans for major attacks on millions of immigrants.

Assembling an Anti-Immigrant Hit Squad

Let’s start with a basic truth from revolutionary leader Bob Avakian : 

Why do people come here from all over the world? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because you have fucked up the rest of the world even worse than what you have done in this country.

As a result of over a century of U.S. capitalism-imperialism plundering their homelands, millions of ordinary hard-working people see no future there. To get some sense of this, go here, here, and here—and to other articles in the revcom.us American Crime series.. They cannot feed their families, cannot keep their kids safe from criminal gangs. So people grab what they can carry, clutch their children by the hand or in their arms, and flee for their lives, taking a dangerous, months-long journey, stalked by violence all the way, hoping to find safe haven in the U.S. 

Instead, the door to safety is slammed in their faces by the rulers of this country! They are met by more violence, from Border Patrol and ICE, vigilantes and gangs. They are forced back into squalid refugee camps in Mexico, once again at the mercy of gangs and corrupt officials, told to “wait your turn,” sometimes for years.

These are the people Trump demonizes as “rapists” and “criminals” from “shithole countries,” accuses of stealing and eating American’s pets, and blames for every problem that American capitalism creates here, from rotten schools to inflation. He blasted out the fascist claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country, echoing Hitler’s language. And far too many oppressed people in the U.S. have gotten sucked into this poisonous bullshit, trying to get a step up by stepping on our vulnerable brothers and sisters, instead of welcoming and defending them.

Whipping up his supporters  during his campaign to demand action to protect the country from these “invaders” has laid the basis for the Trump regime to go full out in rounding up and terrorizing immigrants and their families. Now Trump has assembled a hit squad to go after immigrants in a massive way. Their stated goal is to deport 11 million undocumented people—millions each year—and at the same time to seal the border to prevent any new immigrants from entering.

Here are the three people who are being put in official positions to carry out Trump’s plan:

• South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. As head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Noem will be in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its 20,000 agents and staff, and of 20,000 Border Patrol agents. ICE is the main enforcer of deportations outside the border regions; it operates out of 400 offices nationwide. Trump’s plan is not just trying to seal the border and go after recent immigrants who are still in the border area—immigrants will be hunted throughout the U.S., even if they have lived here for decades, settled down, raised families.

  Noem’s home state is over 1,000 miles from the southern border, and immigrants are less than five percent of its population, Yet Noem has made whipping up fear of immigrants a central part of her political persona. She talks about the border being “a war zone,” and she has deployed South Dakota National Guard to support fascist militarization of the Texas border five times. She even offered to supply razor wire to maim desperate families seeking safety.

• Stephen Miller, former Trump senior policy advisor. In a 2023 interview with the New York Times, Miller said that he had been working for two years on a detailed plan for deporting millions of people each year, without hearings or other due process. Miller's plan also specifies rounding up undocumented immigrants already in the United States and detaining them in camps before they’re expelled from the country.¹ 

  Miller said this plan would require not only ICE agents but also local police and state National Guard troops. As Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Miller will have broad access to federal power that could facilitate that. And Miller says: “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.” 

• Tom Homan is an anti-immigrant pig to his very core. Homan’s exact powers and duties as “border czar” are not yet clear. But what is clear is that this former cop, Border Patrol agent, ICE agent and acting director of ICE (2017-2018) has vowed to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”²

  Homan is considered the “architect” of the family separation program during Trump’s first term, which ripped thousands of children out of the arms of their parents. And Homan still defends it: “I don’t give a shit, right? Bottom line is, we enforced the law.” Those who crossed the border “chose to separate themselves.” Asked if there was a way to deport 11 million people without again separating families, Homan shot back, “Of course there is—families can be deported together.” And what if local governors or mayors don’t want mass deportations in their cities/states? “If you're not going to help us, get the hell out of the way—because we’re gonna do it.”

Immediate Targets: DACA and TSP

This industrial-scale crime against humanity will not happen all at once. There are different fronts that may be moved on to accomplish a bold and vicious opening salvo. Homan, Trump and others have said that initial moves will include canceling Temporary Protective Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

Under TPS, immigrants in the U.S. whose home countries are too dangerous to return to are allowed to legally stay, and get work permits, until conditions change. If TPS is cancelled, about a million people from 16 countries (most from Haiti and Venezuela) would instantly become illegal, unable to work, and hunted for deportation. Many people with TPS are part of mixed-status families, and so would be ripped away from their children and other loved ones. Some have said that returning home under current conditions "would be a death sentence."

DACA grants temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have grown up and established lives here. About 3.6 million people are eligible for DACA; many of them have never visited their home country and don’t know anyone there. Some don’t speak the language. If DACA is canceled, they could be deported to what is essentially a foreign country to them. And again, huge numbers are now married to and/or have children who are U.S. citizens.

What About the Democrats?

In 2020, especially in the wake of public outcry and protest against Trump’s “family separation” policy, the Democrats tried to posture as “compassionate” towards immigrants in contrast to Trump’s inhuman cruelty. But by the end of the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris was attacking Trump from the right. According to National Public Radio, Harris said, “I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk.” She also bragged about a “tough on the border” bill that the Democrats had pushed that would have beefed up the Border Patrol and enabled Biden and Harris to “shut down the border.” In other words, she reinforced the fascist view that most immigrants are dangerous criminals, and insisted that only she was serious about stopping them.

This is another illustration of the fact that the Democrats can’t fight fascism the way it needs to be fought. For one thing, they were all-in on the devastation done by U.S. imperialism in the past in Latin America and elsewhere that is driving mass migrations of desperate people. And there is no way for their profit-driven system to repair or undo that, or even stop doing it going forward. And they also do not want to challenge the American chauvinism and white supremacy at the core of the anti-immigrant movement, which again, the Democrats are neck-deep in themselves.

This can only be solved by a socialist system, as envisioned in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian. That Constitution makes the point that immigrants will play a big role in making the revolution that brings a socialist society into being. And it stresses that “The orientation of the New Socialist Republic in North America is to welcome immigrants from all over the world who have a sincere desire to contribute to the goals and objectives of this Republic.” And the new socialist republic will not only end the predatory reign of U.S. imperialism over oppressed nations, which has given rise to “the immigration crisis,” but also encourage and give support to revolutionary struggles around the world, which will enable the masses to repair the damage done by imperialism and build livable societies. 

What Is Needed NOW!

No one should go along with, and every decent person should oppose, the attacks on immigrants: calling out anti-immigrant bullshit from whomever, whenever, wherever… defending immigrants vigorously when they are under attack… and mobilizing in many different ways to defeat Trump’s plan for mass deportations, which may well barrel down on people blitzkrieg-style once Trump takes office.

BE READY! But even more important, join with the revcoms (revolutionary communists) in taking up the revolutionary struggle to defeat this fascist regime as part of fighting for a real revolution and a whole new and better world.

In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.
A Better World IS Possible.

The Existing Capitalist-Imperialist System And Institutions Of Government In This Country Must Be Abolished And Dismantled—And Replaced By A New, Socialist System Based On The CONSTITUTION FOR THE NEW SOCIALIST REPUBLIC IN NORTH AMERICA.