http://themilitant.com/2017/8115/811501.html
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Vol. 81/No. 15 April 17, 2017
(lead article, Socialist Workers Party statement)
Build May Day protests! Join fight for Amnesty now!
Militant/Sarah Katz
Osborne Hart, right, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of New
York, greets striking Spectrum-Time Warner Cable worker at IBEW Local 3
solidarity rally April 5.
The following statement was released April 5 by Osborne Hart,
Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of New York.
Join me in building protests and strikes on May Day this year against
deportations and immigration raids! Join me in demanding amnesty for all
undocumented workers in this country!
President Barack Obama put more undocumented workers in jail for
immigration “offenses” than any president in U.S. history. Stepping up
the anti-immigrant demagogy, President Donald Trump is driving forward
on the same course. The rulers the Democrats and Republicans serve seek
to pit worker against worker, claiming undocumented workers take
“American” jobs.
A worker at the Hunts Point Produce Market in New York put it well as I
talked to him after the “Day Without Immigrants” strike here Feb. 16.
When it comes to immigrant workers, “Obama was a wolf in sheep’s
clothing and Trump is a wolf in wolf’s clothing.”
U.S. bosses need immigrant labor, and the semilegal status they’re
pushed into, to create a superexploited layer of the working class and
boost their profits. They work overtime to pit native-born workers
against immigrants to push down the wages and working conditions of us all.
The fact is U.S. workers are less anti-immigrant, less racist than ever
before. Millions of workers who have come here from Mexico, Central
America, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere have now worked and lived
side by side with native-born workers for decades.
“When your kids are such good friends at school, people are getting to
know each other better,” a worker in Denison, Iowa, where packinghouses
attracted immigrant workers in droves, told the New York Times March 28.
“They’re trusting each other, wanting to be around each other.”
This means the capitalist rulers have a problem, and we’re in a stronger
position than ever to unify the working class, to fight and win amnesty.
Obama and Trump both claim the focus is on deporting immigrants who are
“criminals.” That’s why we say, “We are workers, not criminals.” And for
that small number of undocumented workers with a “record” — just like
some of our U.S.-born co-workers — we say “no double jeopardy.” Amnesty
for all!
The only road to build a fighting union movement is for our unions to
say to our brothers and sisters, “We don’t want to see your papers. We
say, let’s fight together.”
The Socialist Workers Party urges you to help make the May Day protests
as successful as possible. Talk with your co-workers. Can you go on a
“Day Without Immigrants” strike at your workplace May 1? Can you
organize or join protest actions in your area?
Unite the working class. Amnesty now! See you May 1.
Related articles:
Seattle protest hits attacks on immigrants, Jews, Muslims
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