Stop the Trump-Pence Reign of Terror Against Immigrants
May 30, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Today, in this country—over 400 people will be ripped away from their lives, families, and jobs by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). People getting ready for work. People taking their kids to school. People reporting to authorities like they’re required to. This has been happening every day since the Trump/Pence regime was inaugurated.
A few of the many incidents: Five men arrested in Lawrence, Massachusetts, when they reported for routine immigration hearings... A young woman in Mississippi arrested after she spoke at a press conference to denounce the unjust arrests of her parents... an ICE raid in Portland, Oregon, that swept away a youth at his home after he showed agents his work permit... 26 men in Fort Worth, Texas, busted by ICE when they reported for community service.
One of Trump’s first acts as president was to issue an executive order prioritizing “the removal of immigrants in the country illegally,” regardless of supposed criminal records. This puts 11 million people in the middle of the government’s bull’s eye. Beyond that—tens of millions live under the constant fear that their parents, siblings, friends, schoolmates, and co-workers could be snatched away at any moment.
The Trump Era
During the Obama years, 2.7 million people were deported, and he was rightly called the “deporter in chief.” The Trump/Pence regime is on a pace to eclipse that despicable record. An ICE report indicated that 41,300 people were arrested for deportation between January 22 and April 29—a rise of almost 40 percent from the year before.
It’s not just the numbers of people being arrested that makes this sustained, escalating assault fascist. Trump’s measures are deliberately aimed at terrorizing all immigrants, and many citizens and legal residents—anyone who any ICE agent claims may be “illegal.” Tens of millions of people whose language, accent, clothing, or any damn thing a cop thinks “suspect.” Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, declared: “This is a new era. This is the Trump era.”
This is fascist repression. It is laying the groundwork for possible ethnic cleansing. It is a linchpin of the entire Trump/Pence program. Tens of thousands arrested, millions threatened directly, tens of millions more terrorized by the escalating clampdown. Made to live under a constant state of terror that at any moment they or their loved ones could be snatched away, forever. Couples have quit jobs and are making sure they never leave their home together, so if one gets arrested, the other is still with the kids... for now. There are people like Silvia Avelar-Flores, a 31-year-old mother of three, picked up by ICE while shopping with her eight-year-old daughter in a Salt Lake City suburb. Or Leandro Arriaga, in the U.S. for 16 years making a living by remodeling homes, arrested in Lawrence, Massachusetts, when he went to an immigration office to begin a process of legalization. People who are here one day, gone the next.
Today, everyone in this country confronts a challenge: Are you going to stand by, find a way to accommodate yourself to these atrocities happening in our midst, and accept the fascists’ deceitful justifications? Or are you going to enter into determined political struggle to put an end to this? The attacks on immigrants must be stopped, this entire fascist agenda must be defeated, and this fascist regime must be driven from power.
At the same time, our sights must be set on making an actual revolution; only revolution can put an end to the inhuman oppression of immigrants and all the other horrors of this system. White supremacy and brutal exploitation of immigrants are sewn into the fabric of this capitalist-imperialist system—and only a revolution that brings about a radically new society with a whole new economic system, politics, and relations between people can lead to the fundamental changes needed. There is a strategy for this revolution and a way to defeat those who rule over us. And Bob Avakian has brought forward a vision and plan for this new society: the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. Get into this radical step into a profoundly liberating future!
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