I do not remember a time that the SWP actually called for open borders,
so this opposition to open borders now is not really a change in
position and it seems more like a dismissal of calls for an open border
rather than so much an opposition. Nevertheless, the SWP has always
called for amnesty for illegal immigrants and has always expressed
solidarity with them, so an implicit call for open borders has always
been implied. The call for amnesty still persists as does the call for
solidarity, but now it is accompanied by the dismissal of calls for an
open border. That is a bit surprising to me, but what confuses me is the
recent articles calling the call for open borders to be utopian. The
word utopian when used by Marxists has always followed Engels' use of
the word. That is, it refers to the attempt to build socialism without a
scientific program for doing so, like utopian communities and communes
or like just writing about it and not trying to do anything about it. So
I am left wondering. What does open borders have to do with utopianism?
https://themilitant.com/2019/04/27/amnesty-for-immigrants-is-key-for-working-class-unity/
Amnesty for immigrants is key for working-class unity
??By Seth Galinsky
Vol. 83/No. 18
May 6, 2019
Rally in Bridgeton, New Jersey, March 17, organized by Cosecha to demand
right to driver???s licenses for immigrant workers without papers. The
fight for this necessity for a normal life strengthens the battle for
amnesty, which would advance unity of the whole working class.
Militant/Janet Post
Rally in Bridgeton, New Jersey, March 17, organized by Cosecha to demand
right to driver???s licenses for immigrant workers without papers. The
fight for this necessity for a normal life strengthens the battle for
amnesty, which would advance unity of the whole working class.
???Our country is full,??? President Donald Trump told Fox News April 5. He
was trying to justify new obstacles the White House is pressing on the
right of asylum for those fleeing violence and other moves aimed at
discouraging immigrants without papers from crossing into the U.S.
There???s no room here, he claimed, ???so turn around.???
But the U.S. is class divided; there is no such thing as ???our??? country.
Every president acts to advance the interests of the capitalist rulers
on the backs of working people. Working people have our own class
interests, and we need to fight for them.
Some of Trump???s liberal critics ??? including Democratic Party
presidential candidate Beto O???Rourke ??? counter the White House by
calling for an open border with Mexico.
Neither side in this debate among capitalist politicians defends the
interests of working people. The Socialist Workers Party demands amnesty
for the 11 million undocumented workers here and an end to raids and
deportations. But the demand to ???open the borders??? is utopian and would
lead to a crisis for working people on both sides of the border.
A million immigrants arrive in the United States every year, most with
???papers,??? many without. This is nothing new. It goes up and down,
depending on the needs of the capitalist class, not on the existence of
a border fence or wall. About 40% come from Asia and about 20% from
Mexico and Central America.
In their drive for profits capitalist bosses in the U.S. and other
imperialist countries superexploit working people in less developed
countries. They buy up raw materials and agricultural products at low
prices and sell back finished goods at high prices. They set up mines,
mills and factories paying workers a pittance.
Banks based in the imperialist countries loan these nations??? governments
money at high interest rates, breeding debt and sucking up even more of
their resources.
As a result, the crisis that we know so well in the U.S. ??? farmers being
driven off the land, wages too low to take care of your family, factory
closings and deaths on the job ??? is exacerbated in Latin America and the
so-called Third World.
In Honduras, for example, thugs paid by big landowners terrorize and
murder peasants demanding land to farm. Criminal gangs fight for control
of the drug trade and extort workers and small proprietors.
International solidarity
Working people from Latin America to China to Africa face the same
challenge we face here ??? the need to break with the parties and politics
of the capitalist class, and to organize an independent movement to
struggle to take control of their own destinies.
In Honduras last year thousands of workers on Chiquita???s banana
plantations went on strike, demanding better pay and work conditions. We
need to see ourselves as part of an international class, and together
with our unions fight shoulder to shoulder with our fellow workers in
Honduras and elsewhere against capitalist exploitation and plunder.
In the absence of a fighting workers??? movement and of a revolutionary
leadership that points the road to taking power out of the hands of
their own capitalist class, many workers and farmers decide their only
hope is to try their luck up north.
Today, instead of organizing solidarity and aid to workers??? and
peasants??? fights across Central America, some liberals and middle-class
radicals promote ???caravans??? to march on the U.S. border. This undermines
the fight for the rights of refugees and for amnesty.
The capitalist bosses need immigrant workers, with papers and without.
They use a calculated measure of deportations to generate fear and to
intimidate undocumented workers so they don???t complain about wages and
conditions and don???t join unions.
Under capitalism workers compete against each other for jobs. The bosses
seek to get immigrant and native-born workers to see each other as
enemies, to fight among ourselves, while they push down the value of our
labor power. That???s why they scapegoat immigrants, telling U.S.-born
workers that immigrants are ???taking??? our jobs. And they tell immigrants
that U.S.-born workers ???don???t want to work.???
Need proof that the capitalists don???t really believe there are too many
immigrants? Under the Trump administration, so-called guest worker visas
for farmworkers has reached a new high ??? nearly a quarter of a million.
But the big agribusinesses still complain they don???t have enough
workers. They can???t do without immigrant workers.
Immigrants strengthen working class
The integration of immigrants into the U.S. working class has made our
class stronger. Among the best examples were the massive demonstrations
in 2006 that culminated on May 1 that year, when more than a million
workers went on strike. They shut down factories across the nation to
protest a law that would have made it a felony just to be in the U.S.
without a visa. They set an example for the entire working class.
Immigrant and U.S.-born workers work in the same factories, live in the
same neighborhoods, with children that go to the same schools, and we
all face the same attacks from the bosses and their government. These
common experiences are why there is less anti-immigrant sentiment among
working people in the U.S. today. But under the pressure of low wages
and the carnage we face from capitalism???s crisis, rightist
anti-immigrant demagogy gets a hearing.
And as Socialist Workers Party leader Mary-Alice Waters points out in Is
Socialist Revolution in the US Possible??? ???Any sharp economic crisis
will intensify the battle for the political soul of the working class on
this and other questions.???
This is a life-and-death question for the labor movement and the working
class.
The only way to rebuild a fighting union movement is to reach out to our
fellow workers without papers and say, ???Wherever you were born, whether
or not you have ???papers,??? whatever language you speak or your skin
color, let???s join together to fight to change the miserable conditions
that capitalism imposes on us.???
Immigrant and native-born workers will join as the gravediggers who will
bury capitalism once and for all.
Join this year???s May Day protests to demand: Amnesty for the 11 million
undocumented workers in the U.S. now!
Related Articles
Join May Day protests for amnesty!
This statement was released April 24 by Seth Galinsky, Socialist Workers
Party candidate for New York City Public Advocate. He plans to
participate in the May Day protest for driver???s licenses for all in
Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The Socialist???
In This Issue
Front Page Articles ???Workers at Stop & Shop end strike, discuss results
???Washington???s sanctions on North Korea fall on toilers
???Former FBI boss Mueller???s probe blow to political rights
???Florida prison officials at it again, impound two issues of ???Militant???
???Washington steps up economic war against Cuban Revolution
??????US rulers wars are extension of the bosses??? attacks on workers at
home???
Feature Articles ???Erbil book fair highlights cultural, political
openings, struggles in Kurdistan and Iraq
Also In This Issue ???Protesters in New Zealand defend Maori land
???Over 300 May Day brigadistas gather in Cuba
???Kurdistan event discusses way forward for working people
???Join May Day protests for amnesty!
???Campaign to expand reach of Militant,??? books, fund April 6 - May 28
(week two)
Books of the Month ???Origins of women???s oppression, private property and
the state
As I See It ???Amnesty for immigrants is key for working-class unity
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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York, NY 10018?? -?? themilitant@xxxxxx
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Christopher Hitchens
??? What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without
evidence. ???
??? Christopher Hitchens,
