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Migrants behind barricades at Roosevelt Hotel, New York City, August 1, 2023. Photo: revcom.us
New York City is the richest city on the entire planet. This city is filled with more wealth and resources than any other on Earth. But during some of the hottest days of this summer, hundreds of immigrants, including many seeking asylum, were stranded, many for days—on blankets, cardboard and newspapers—on the sunbaked sidewalk circling the historic Roosevelt Hotel now repurposed into an asylum seeker “welcome center.” In May alone, 13,000 migrants, including people from oppressed countries like Venezuela, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Mauritania, and Central African Republic, were processed. They have been driven from their countries by violence, poverty, and pollution, and climate change because the capitalist-imperialist system has used military invasions, coups, puppet governments, and trade agreements, to dominate their economies.
In response to this desperation, NYC Mayor Eric (the “Black Giuliani”) Adams blares there is “no room” for these desperate human beings—while in close proximity to these asylum seekers suffering on the streets are towering office buildings with an 18 percent vacancy rate, and countless luxury apartments held empty for speculative “investment.” Human beings are forced to camp out on the sidewalks, and Adams proclaims his laser focus on keeping the streets clean: “I can assure you that this city is not going to look like other cities where there are tents up and down every street.” And meanwhile the Biden administration is working to enforce dehumanizing and inhuman policies at the border while talking about “compassion.”
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August 1, 2023, NYC: RevComs march to Roosevelt Hotel where migrants have to register. Photo: revcom.us
Last week, driven by the urgency of this understanding, a determined group of revcoms marched on Tuesday afternoon, August 1, with a banner declaring: We Need and We Demand: A Whole New Way to Live, A Fundamentally Different System. As the pamphlet with that title says: “Immigrants, from all parts of the world, who have a sincere desire to contribute to goals of the new socialist republic will be welcome in this republic.” We distributed We Are The Revcoms in English and Spanish, taking our message out to the world:
We Don’t Have an Immigration Problem, We Have an Imperialism Problem—This System Has No Answer to the Refugee Crisis, WE DO: A Real Revolution!
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