Open the Borders to the Migrant Caravan! No Human Being Is Illegal!

Statement of CORCI México

(November 22, 2018)

More than 10,000 Hondurans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans — after traveling across Mexican territory — have arrived at the U.S. border. Most have settled in the city of Tijuana, on the border with San Diego. Their demand is to enter the United States and apply for asylum.

Half the members of the caravan are women and children, underscoring the drama involved in embarking on this journey, leaving everything behind to seek a better life.

Donald Trump manipulated this exodus in the recent U.S. mid-term elections, creating a “foreign enemy” to shore up his xenophobic and racist electoral base. He continues to wield the menace of an alleged “invasion” to militarize the border to which he has already sent more than 3,500 troops. He is also threatening the total closure of the border.

Trump’s Xenophobia Exported to Mexico

In Mexico, a wave of truly fake news on the social networks and in the mainstream media has fostered anti-immigrant racism among sectors of the Mexican population, particularly on the border. Right-wing parties organized a demonstration “In Defense of Tijuana” and “against the invasion” in which they called for deporting the migrants back to Central America. They were supported by National Action Party (PAN) mayor of Tijuana Juan Manuel Gastelum.

We call upon all working people and youth to reject this xenophobic agenda. For us in CORCI-Mexico, no human being is illegal. The members of the caravan are not invaders, they are part of the international working class. As workers exploited by capitalist corporations, our interests are the same. The real invaders are the big transnational corporations that come to plunder our natural and energy resources and to exploit the cheap labor offered by our governments, which impose starvation wages on this side of the border.

Those who really threaten our sovereignty are those who have imposed privatizations and destroyed our labor and social rights.

Solidarity with the Migrant Caravan!

In Mexico and the United States, the sections of the Organizing Committee for the Reconstitution of the Fourth International (OCRFI) have raised the slogan, which today is more valid than ever, of the Right to Stay Home. This requires breaking with the dictates of U.S. imperialism, such as the “free trade” agreements and privatizations. It requires generating jobs in our country and guaranteeing the basic rights to education and health care, as well as to better wages and decent living conditions.

We demand that the Mexican government implement all the necessary measures to guarantee the safety of the Migrant Caravan and to demand that the U.S. government open its borders to the migrants. The responsibility for this massive migration lies exclusively with the U.S. government and its policies of looting and intervention throughout the region.

We demand that the Mexican government stop the violence against the migrants. We demand that humanitarian visas be granted to those who decide to stay in our country, and that access to education and healthcare be guaranteed to all, especially to the women and children.

• No to the militarization of the Mexico-U.S. border!
• Stop the racist and xenophobic provocations of the governments of the United States and Mexico!
• Free passage to the migrants!
• No to the USMCA “free trade” agreement!
• No to the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR)!