Socialist Organizer Statement …

In Solidarity with Los Angeles: No to the National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles! No to the ICE Raids! 

We need to build a united front of the labor movement and community-based organizations to defeat all the anti-worker measures of the Trump regime.

Trump has set out to dismantle, with each passing day, all vestiges of the bourgeois republic, starting first and foremost with immigrants. Across the country the Trump regime has eroded due process and access to immigration courts, arresting immigrant families attending their court hearings, and even arresting children at reporting appointments. Though these individuals were in compliance with their court proceedings, fascism does not care about legality. 

Lawless workplace raids

The Trump regime has escalated its attacks by carrying out indiscriminate workplace raids in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and now Los Angeles county. In the execution of these workplace raids, ICE agents terrorize communities, including violently injuring and arresting labor leader David Huerta, president of the California SEIU, who had to be hospitalized. These raids have sparked mass protests across Los Angeles and the nation. 

The resistance in Los Angeles is justified 

When the government uses violence and force against immigrant workers, we cannot sit silent. It becomes imperative to defend all workers, including the most vulnerable immigrant workers, against this regime’s violence and lawlessness. 

We stand in solidarity with all workers in Los Angeles who oppose the fascist and authoritarian actions of this government and who stand their ground in defense of immigrant workers.

Democrats shamelessly unleash the police on protesters 

In California, Democratic Governor Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Bass are already caving before the fascist attacks from Trump and are turning against the protesters. They criticise Trump’s policies in words, but when it comes to action, they unleash repression against those who are defending democracy and worker and migrant rights. 

Under their watch, the LAPD has routinely declared the entire downtown area in Los Angeles “an unlawful assembly area,” thereby turning against the populace on the side of Trump. Already, thousands of protesters have been violently attacked with rubber bullets and tear gas. Hundreds have been arrested. This confirms that both the Democratic Party and Republican Party only serve the interests of the capitalists, even if they disagree on how to carry out the ruling-class agenda.   

This situation points out the urgent need for the working-class to regain its political independence – in the streets and in the political arena.  

Against the usurpation of the state’s National Guard and the sending of the Marines by Trump

Trump’s deployment of 4,000 officers from the state’s National Guard and 700 active Marines is based on the false pretense that there is an invasion and insurrection in Los Angeles. The turning of the military against the second most populous city in the country raises serious questions about the stage of the fascist take-over. 

Are we heading toward a dictatorship in this country, a form of fascist regime, linked to the general march toward world war? The danger is serious. 

The working-class is responding with mass, united mobilizations against Fascism

But it has to be noted that, in the face of this anti-democratic steamroller, a powerful mobilization is growing, on a scale unseen for decades. On June 14, millions of people protested across the country, in over 2,000 localities. 

It is especially important to find, among the organizers of these demonstrations, a large number of unions (LCLAA/National-AFL-CIO, FUN, PSC, SEIU, NEA, AFT, among others) that are thus affirming that our immigrant brothers and sisters belong to the working-class of this country, which, it should be remembered, is a nation of immigrants.

The labor movement, by taking part in these mass demonstrations, is forging the unity of all workers – whether they are immigrants with papers, undocumented immigrants, or U.S. citizens.

Who will prevail in this decisive confrontation? Who will emerge victorious from this class struggle in the days and weeks ahead? The question will be answered soon.

We insist: the united front that is being built, while it has at its heart the defense of immigrants’ rights, expresses a more generalized aspiration — that is, the need to block the reactionary wave sweeping all areas of the country. 

Only a working-class united-front can stop Fascism in its tracks

The working class, with all its components, rallying together all the oppressed communities, is the only sector of society that is capable of blocking the movement toward fascism – of defending democracy, and allowing the free development of the poor, the oppressed, the exploited, and the preservation of all their conquests. Only the Labor movement –  in a mass-based united-front alliance with its community partners – can stop the Trump occupation of our cities and defend immigrant workers!

It will take the entire weight of the organized labor movement, with its millions of members and hundreds of millions of dollars in strike reserves, to stop the occupation of our cities by the state’s National Guard and to defend our immigrant brothers and sisters. With the violent arrest of California’s SEIU president signaling an escalation, it is now or never for the labor movement. 

No to the National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles! No to the ICE raids!

We call for the establishment of defense committees to defend all workers, including our most vulnerable immigrant workers. We call on the labor movement to mobilize and prepare mass strikes to stop the occupation of our cities by the National Guard. 

The time has come now to build at every level – from the smallest town to the state and federal levels – the united front of all the labor and community organizations. A strong united front to demand:

– the repeal of all Trump administration’s attacks against workers and oppressed peoples, beginning with revoking all anti-immigrant policies;

– an immediate end to all deportations;

– an end to all budget cuts and layoffs;

– freedom for all who have been detained for exercising their First Amendment rights; and

– Immediate withdrawal of the National Guard and the Marines from our cities and communities.