Thursday, July 25, 2024

It is time to plan for resistance.

How stupid can the Maga Republicans get ?

And, when will the left pay attention to the anti -immigration claims?

Trump and the Maga Right are making claims that they will deport the undocumented in the U.S. Check Project 2025.

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/a-maga-victory-in-2024-will-lead-to-ethnic-cleansing

Most estimates say that there are about 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. at this time. Over half of these people have been here for ten or more years. Undocumented come from many countries. Large numbers are now from India, China and the Philippines among others.

It seems like the Democrats and the left dismiss the plans of the Maga/ Republican movement. It is not just crazy Donald. Watch the Republican campaign events and you will see immigration as a primary dog whistle.

Respond to this question.

What did you do when your (brother, sister, uncle, neighbor) got rounded up ?

The 5 biggest Trump-Republican lies about illegal immigration

Robert Reich,

Trump and his GOP lackeys are fueling dangerous nativism.

See on our blog:

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/the-5-biggest-trump-republican-lies-about-illegal-immigration

I, for one, think that if they win the Presidency and at least one chamber of the Congress, they will try to implement their plan. After all, they have tried before. And, this time they have a plan.

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

However the demographics have changed. Each group of immigrants have their own histories. Venezuelan and Haitian, for example, have distinctly different histories of migration and oppression.

I will use the Mexican and Mexican American experience for examples.

To try to remove the 11 million, in my view, could well lead to significant resistance. Some of it armed. And yet, this prospect does not seem to be of concern to the majority population and it is not being contested in this election.

For background, readers should look at Operation Wetback under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the so-called Mexican Repatriation project of the 1930’s.
The implementation of Operation Wetback was a result of Attorney General Herbert Brownell's tour of Southern California in August 1953. It was there that he made note of the "shocking and unsettling" issue that was illegal immigration.[2] The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century and some were naturalized citizens who were once native, Operation Wetback was designed to send them to Mexico.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback

Operation Wetback was a follow-up to the prior Mexican Repatriation when as many as 2 million were deported, many of them children. Up to 40% of those deported were U.S. citizens of Mexican descent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation

Currently there is a competition among Republicans to be the toughest on immigration policy by focusing on fentanyl, which commonly begins production in China.

For some perspective, during WWII, the U.S. interned about 120,000 Japanese Americans. How do you suppose they will be able to deport and or intern 11 million ?

The Latino population makes up about 37 million in the U.S. There are some 12 million Mexican and Mexican Americans in California alone. Mexicans and Mexican Americans do at least 80 % of the agricultural work in California, Texas and Arizona. What will be the result on the economies ?

Mexico is a large dynamic economy , the 7^th. Largest in the world, with many problems. However, they are the number one market for U.S. exports. If the Maga Republicans institute a trade war, both sides will be effected. Who is going to take care of all the elderly in nursing homes and elder care facilities?

How this fits into a broader series of conflicts.

Project 2025: a fascist vision for the US

Project 2025 was initiated and published by the Heritage Foundation, the most influential rightwing think tank, and the one closest to the power centers of the Right and the Republican Party. It has united much of the conservative movement, their think tanks, activists, and lobbying groups with the goal of installing a much more effective, more ruthless right-wing regime. It comes with tremendous funding and the backing of much of the political Right and believes there is a socialist plot in the highest echelons of American power. It sees a vast conspiracy with enemies everywhere, and that un-American forces have overtaken every institution.

Project 2025 is a major policy and ideological projection. It is a fascist document and puts forward a strategic path to create an authoritarian Christian dominated society through control of the state. There are other statements from within the authoritarian bloc with somewhat different formulations and viewpoints. Project 2025 is the most developed, and has been signed by over 100 groups and think-tanks. They want to be the ideological and policy brain behind Trump, who is useful as a mass fascist leader, but lacks the intellectual capacity to carry out a strategic project.

This is serious

https://convergencemag.com/articles/the-right-reads-gramsci-project-2025-and-neo-fascism/?

Background.

The Left needs to respond to the current “crisis” at the border.

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/a-maga-victory-in-2024-will-lead-to-ethnic-cleansing

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/the-left-needs-a-strategy-to-respond-to-the-crisis-at-the-border

Monday, July 22, 2024

Mass Deportations _

Mass Deportations

Trump is calling for mass deportation of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, the great majority of whom are Mexican, but who also include Central Americans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, Chinese, and Muslims. The New York Times on November 11th ran an article titled “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps, and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans.” The article provides a chilling description of the plan: “To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings.” He wants to build massive deportation camps to house the millions of immigrants and refugees they plan to remove from the US. Trump has publicly compared his plan to the infamous “Operation Wetback” of the Eisenhower administration, in which millions of Chicanos and Mexicanos, many of them US citizens, were rounded up and deported to Mexico.

Most people don’t realize the horrendously broad impact of these policies, not only on those rounded up and shipped out, but on their families, their communities, on schools, local businesses, churches, and faith organizations, and unions with large numbers of immigrant worker members.

To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, Trump plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states. He would pay for this terror project by using money from the massive US military budget, as he did during his first administration when Congress refused to fund his infamous border wall.

An End to Legal Immigration

Unlike during his first administration, Trump’s plan assumes broad judicial support from the reactionary Supreme Court majority that he appointed as well as from the hundreds of federal judges that he appointed during his administration.

The racist neo-fascist agenda includes ending the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program altogether. It also includes ending the Temporary Protected Status Program that provides refuge for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing systemic violence or natural disasters.

The Trump and Republican agenda includes virtually eliminating opportunities for legal immigration and promising to end the Constitutionally protected policy of birthright citizenship for babies born in the US to undocumented parents, and ordering federal agencies to stop issuing Social Security cards and passports to these citizens. Trump has also promised to cancel the visas of international students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian activities. US consular officials would have the okay to block visa applicants whom a Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes.

Trump’s racist agenda has not only received enthusiastic support from most of the Republican Party, but some of them have upped the ante by promising to launch military assaults, including missiles, against Mexican drug cartels.

This agenda is but one crucial example of the program of the New Confederacy, represented politically primarily by the Republicans. For leftists and progressives, this is but one more proof that this neo-fascist right-wing movement represents the greatest threat to any semblance of democracy, equity, and social justice. And these measures do not even include Trump’s plans to eliminate all federal policies that address the climate crisis and provide a complete green light (and federal subsidies) to the fossil fuel industrial complex.

So where is the outrage? Where are the marches? Where are the sit-ins? Where are the boycotts? Where are even the articles or blogs that should be sounding the alarm about this planned ethnic cleansing?

Michael Fleshman, “Not One More Deportation,” 2014

What Is to Be Done?

Labor can take the lead in this important fight for equity and democracy. The AFL-CIO should work together with the extensive network of worker centers throughout the US to not only push back on Trump’s plans but work to achieve genuine immigration reform, including an accessible path to citizenship for all the undocumented, and full protection for all undocumented young people brought to the United States as children (“dreamers”).

Left unity is more important than ever around this issue. Now is the time for US socialist organizations to come together to develop a strategy to fight against Trump’s plans and for full rights for all undocumented workers. All leftists and activists can organize within unions, independent political organizations, non-profits, and other mass organizations within which they are organizing. Those fighting for the rights of oppressed gender people have an important role to play as well, especially since significant numbers of undocumented people impacted by a massive deportation campaign would be women (and children).

Trump’s threat calls for a powerful and sustained response from the Democratic Party. The groups mentioned above can demand that response in an open letter calling for an immediate denunciation of the whole Trump program. This includes a commitment to genuine and comprehensive immigration reform that will provide immediate and unconditional residency to all refugees and asylum seekers while the authorities process their cases. We need to fight to restore the DACA program, and to advocate for new immigration legislation that will provide an accessible path to citizenship for all undocumented residents. This program should also include a promise to protect birthright citizenship.

All of this work should be supported by a comprehensive communications campaign to get out the word—including the Spanish-language and other non-English media, Black media, and progressive outlets such as Democracy Now, Real News Network, the Mexico Solidarity Media website, and op-ed features in the mainstream media as well. Now more than ever, we need to work to win the battle of ideas on this issue.

This article was written by Bill Gallegos as part of Liberation Road’s “Adalante!” booklet series, in coordination with the Mexico Solidarity Project. A former member of the Brown Berets and a founder of the New Raza Left, Bill Gallegos has been an activist and theorist in the Chican@ Liberation Movement since the 1960s.

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