As Donald Trump continues to ramp up his immigration raids and slash social programs, one theme is consistent through his press conferences and executive orders: class war. Not just the one enforced by ICE raids, mass kidnappings, and deportations, but one that he is aiming to invade and bomb Venezuela, Mexico, and now Colombia in the so-called “war on drugs.” These attacks on the working class are part of the same imperial system, and they must be opposed with equal force, organization, and clear politics.

Trump’s recent remarks claiming that he is going to “take control” of Latin America under the pretext of fighting drug cartels are nothing new. These remarks echo a long and bloody history of U.S. intervention in the hemisphere—one that stretches from Chile and Argentina to more recent efforts aimed at overthrowing Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

One does not need to fully agree with the governments of these countries to support peace or diplomacy and prevent bloodshed or death. While people in the U.S. face hunger, homelessness, and lack vital mental health services, instead of addressing these issues, our government is spending our tax dollars on war and occupation.

It is not the fault of the governments of Latin America that the Trump administration is slashing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), cutting Medicaid, evicting people, and closing the Department of Education, among other cuts to social programs. These are direct actions by our own anti-worker government and system.

Every time Washington claims it’s bringing “democracy” or “freedom” to Latin America, Africa, Asia, or the Middle East, it brings hunger, poverty, death, racism, and destruction. These invasions have overthrown democratically elected governments, supported dictators, and displaced millions of families, fueling the very migration crisis Trump now condemns.

Latin America Under The Boot Of The U.S. Empire

In recent years, Washington has funded multiple coups across our hemisphere, aiming to replace elected presidents with Wall Street-friendly puppets and promote “color revolutions” in the region. From the 2009 coup in Honduras to the 2019 overthrow in Bolivia, the failed 2018 coup attempt in Nicaragua, the 2022 Peruvian coup, and the repeated plots to invade Venezuela or assassinate democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. has continued to undermine democracy in Latin America under the guise of “freedom” and “human rights,” and now the “war on drugs.”

But this pattern is nothing new. Since its creation, the United States has consistently interfered in Latin America’s internal affairs– through invasions, land grabs, and regime changes. From stealing half of Mexico’s territory to occupying Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

Our hemisphere has always fought to defend its sovereignty and independence from both European colonial powers and U.S. imperialism.

As Eduardo Galeano noted in his well-known book, ‘Open Veins of Latin America,’ he stated that:

From 1898 to 1994, the U.S. overthrew at least 41 governments in Latin America, according to research by Columbia University historian John Coatsworth.

On March 8th, 2022, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report stating that from 1991 to 2022, the U.S. conducted at least 251 military interventions and 469 foreign interventions worldwide since 1798.

The ruling class in the U.S. has always feared that the peoples of the Americas could unite, draw from our ancestral practices, culture, and heritage, and improve our lives in the pursuit of self-determination, which is why they spend trillions of dollars creating divisions. They are well aware that we have more in common with working-class people in our hemisphere than with the billionaires who control the world.

In a 1965 report by Ray S. Cline, Deputy Director for Intelligence (CIA), to the Policy Planning Council Department of State:

“Most of the Latin American Communist parties formally came into being in the decade following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. The Communist Party of Argentina is the oldest party in the hemisphere, having been founded in 1918. Each of the parties has looked to Moscow from the start for its ideology and guidance. None has drawn on Latin America’s heritage of communal practices and traditions, which have stemmed from the area’s great Aztec, Maya, or Inca civilizations.”

There is a reason why we are constantly told that the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Mexico, and, more recently, Colombia are “bad” actors and need to be replaced. It has nothing to do with human rights, drugs, and everything to do with controlling the nation’s natural resources and finances, labor power, and getting them to align with the U.S. imperial ambition to dominate the planet. That is the same reason we never hear anything about the governments of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile, and others that are under the imperial grip of the Pentagon and Wall Street.

Also, who gives the U.S. the right to dictate what type of government and system an independent country should use? As Dr. Martin Luther King put it:

How can we criticize another country when we can’t get our own government to stop sending weapons to kill innocent Palestinians? How can we trust that the same government financing and orchestrating a genocide in Gaza now cares about human rights in Venezuela or Cuba? When the U.S. government itself bears the blame as the original sinner of this hemisphere, it has never been held accountable for its actions.

There is a reason the Trump administration approved a $20 billion bailout for Argentina amid its economic crisis—while maintaining an illegal embargo on Cuba and imposing sanctions on Venezuela and Nicaragua. Major corporations and banks maintain a strong hold on Argentina’s natural resources and national debt, and they aim to do the same in Cuba and Venezuela.

U.S. Banks Fund Death And Destruction

Banking institutions in the U.S. have a long, brutal history of profiting from the death and destruction of our hemisphere. For the case of Venezuela, there was a moment when Venezuela was a producer of cocaine, and that production was moved to the North American market. This was during the 1970s and 90s because the U.S.-backed government of Venezuela at the time allowed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to operate freely throughout Venezuela, overseeing cocaine shipments to the U.S., unbothered by law enforcement.

Former Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP) collaborated with U.S. agencies and was well-known for being connected to major narco-traffickers who also financed his presidential elections. In 1974, when Carlos became president, he made a major deal with the DEA and opened a regional office in Caracas, which marked the peak of cocaine traffic from Venezuela to the U.S..

In 1993, 60 Minutes did a show exposing the DEA-CIA drug trafficking operations.

The people of Latin America indeed continue to suffer at the hands of the cartels. However, cartels can only function successfully because of the U.S. banking system. In 2010, we witnessed Wachovia admitting that they laundered $378 billion in drug money. The company’s laundering director said, “It’s the banks laundering money for the cartels that finance the tragedy (in Mexico).” Bank of America, HSBC, and Wells Fargo also admitted to laundering money for the cartels, at the cost of human life.

No CEO from these banks was put on trial, arrested, or denied employment —they were just slapped with a fine.

In 2005, under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, he expelled the DEA from Caracas as part of his intense anti-drug campaign. A United Nations report states there is no discernible drug cultivation or production in Venezuela.

The Trump administration cannot provide any evidence that the Maduro government is connected to the cartels. Still, there is evidence that the U.S.-backed self-proclaimed “president” of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, is linked to Colombian death squads and drug networks, as reviewed in 2020 by journalist Ben Norton.

In a recent interview with Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador, Nicolás Maduro said that he reviewed recent data showing that “it is over $500 billion annually that is in the U.S. banking system, in legal banks. If they want to investigate a cartel, let them investigate the cartel up north. It’s from the United States that all drug trafficking is directed from South America and from the rest of the world.”

Venezuela’s oil reserves, which the U.S. seeks full control over, are among its most valuable assets. Venezuela has approximately 303 billion barrels of oil, making it home to the world’s largest known oil reserves. In addition, they have significant deposits of natural gas, iron, bauxite, gold, and diamonds, as well as various other minerals and agricultural products such as coffee, sugar, and cacao.

U.S. Deploys Aircraft Carrier

On October 24, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the largest warship on Earth, traveling to the Caribbean. This vessel is not a tool or instrument for attacking small drug trafficking boats; it is an instrument for waging a massive war on the Caribbean and South America.

This move is an escalation aimed at intimidating the leaders of Venezuela and Colombia as well. The most capable and lethal strike force in the world is added to the already significant military buildup in the Caribbean, which includes 10,000 troops, at least eight warships, P-8 surveillance aircraft, and F-35 jets deployed amid the Trump administration’s alleged counter-narcotics efforts.

On November 14th, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced “Operation Southern Spear.” Hegseth said they aim to target “narco-terrorists.”

The small island country of Trinidad and Tobago, located just a few miles from Venezuela, reportedly is already hosting U.S. troops for a five-day “military exercise.”

Unlike the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, where former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the United Nations Security Council on “evidence” of Iraq’s failure to disarm and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the Trump administration is not providing any evidence support the claims that Maduro is trafficking drugs or that any of the fishing boats that the U.S. is bombing along the Pacific and Caribbean are carrying drugs.

“It’s past time for Maduro to go. Keep it up, President Trump,” said Senator Lindsay Graham on Friday, October 24th.

Graham continued advocating for “decisive military action on land, sea, or air.” Claiming that for years it’s been a “haven for drug cartels and poisoning America,” said Graham.

On October 21 and 22, the U.S. military continued its operations, including maritime activities along Colombia’s Pacific Coast, this time striking two boats near Colombia.

The Intercept recently reported that a high-ranking Pentagon official admitted that these strikes are criminal attacks on civilians.

The United Nations explicitly condemned Trump’s boat strikes, calling them “International law does not allow governments to simply murder alleged drug traffickers.” David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University, said it clearly, “We are simply engaged in cold-blooded murder.”

Since September, at least 83 people have died in approximately 21 airstrikes in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific as the US military expands its assets in the region. While Washington claims the goal is to combat drug trafficking, the growing fleet has raised concerns that the U.S. may be planning an attack on Venezuela.

Trump’s Aggression Against Latin America

The real reason Venezuela is under attack is that the U.S. government no longer controls its natural resources, and the government in power is not a puppet. Trump’s message is clear: he wants to reassert U.S. power through fear and military force. Both overseas and at home. Our response must be just as clear; we refuse to let him attack Latin America and our undocumented community. We must build solidarity across borders, expose the hypocrisy of “law and order” politics, and challenge U.S. imperialism that underpins both ICE and the Pentagon.

The future of Latin America and the safety of our immigrant communities depend on our ability to connect these struggles. Opposing Trump’s war agenda means more than rejecting one man’s policies– it means fighting the entire system of empire that enables them.

We live in the belly of the beast. The people of Los Angeles and the nation have the most important responsibility to prevent the U.S. war machine from re-invading our hemisphere for a rich man’s war. From Gaza to Venezuela, we must oppose Trump’s war agenda. We have nothing to gain and so much to lose if Trump can carry out his military bombing or invasion of Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico.

Resistance must therefore be internationalist. This means standing with Latin American movements fighting U.S. intervention and with immigrant communities resisting deportation.

President Trump started his second term exactly where he left off in 2021, waging an everyday psychological and physical war on immigrants. Joe Biden's Presidential term was no help because he continued Trump’s immigration policies and did not provide a pathway to citizenship as he had campaigned, abandoning an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants to their fate under the more openly fascist Trump regime. As a result, it has brought more attention to our undocumented community and our immigration policies.

The tug and pull by Democrats and Republicans of whether immigrants should have some rights to a dignified life has left us with a dysfunctional, incoherent immigration system for working-class people to understand, leaving people lost in how our system works or should work.

Consulting history reveals that our government does not work for the people; it works for the ruling class, the capitalist class. This is their system, not ours. We are conditioned to believe what politicians tell us, that we need to repeatedly vote for the next “good” candidate, which leaves us disappointed each time. In reality, we should challenge the system as a whole and its treatment of our most vulnerable community members.

Trump’s racist agenda against immigrants is nothing new. Trump is not an outsider who landed in the U.S. from Mars a few years ago and suddenly started attacking our people with hateful rhetoric and executive orders. Trump is homegrown and falls in line with all U.S. presidents before him in attacking our immigrant community. From the colonial period to the “founding” of this country to today, immigration law is rooted in racism. Therefore, Trump is following in the footsteps of his predecessors, Democrat or Republican, because the system allows him to do so.

Capitalism and Immigration

In capitalism's eyes, immigrants are not regarded as humans but rather as a labor pool from which to extract maximum profit while also denying them basic human needs for a dignified life. This leaves migrant workers in fear, preventing them from demanding better wages or working conditions, as they live in a state of irregularity and vulnerability, facing the threat of unemployment, arrest, or worse, deportation. Undocumented workers from the Global South are essential to maximizing profits in wealthy, developed countries.

Migrant workers accept low wages and work in unhealthy, dangerous conditions, meaning that they are not free to choose where they want to work; they are pulled by capital. Therefore, the labor force exploited by the ruling class is central to creating value in the capitalist system.

Moreover, capitalism does not set a specific price on goods we need or use; instead, it aims to maximize profit from what is produced and minimize the cost of labor involved. For example, in 2022, California’s agriculture sector generated more than $59 billion in sales, and the state remains a top producer of agricultural products in the nation, ranking as the world’s fifth-largest producer, surpassing the economies of many countries.

Meanwhile, farmworkers are among the most exploited workers in the country, earning about $24,871 annually, according to the UC Merced Community and Labor Center. There are approximately 500,000 to 800,000 farmworkers in California, with seventy-five percent being undocumented. In addition, “around 30% of households with farmworkers’ income fall below the poverty line, and 73% earn less than 200% of poverty (a threshold used in many public assistance programs),” reads a report by La Cooperativa.

In Trump's first five months, he applied intense pressure on our undocumented communities. However, the capitalist class that relies on that labor pushed back against Trump, as the same individuals that ICE is targeting are those the system exploits, working in our fields, hotels, and the service industry.

For example, on April 10th, President Trump recommended at a Cabinet meeting, “We have to take care of our farmers, the hotels and, you know, the various places where they tend to, where they tend to need people.”

Industry leaders and Wall Street are well aware of the financial losses that would happen if the deportation system continues, and the U.S. economy could collapse in days if it succeeds in its plan to deport millions of undocumented workers.

“America currently faces a workforce shortage of 1.7 million people. We simply don’t have enough workers to fill the current job openings, and mass deportations could exacerbate this shortage and put further pressure on businesses,” said Sam Sanchez, owner of Third Coast Hospitality, National Restaurant Association board member, and co-chair of Comité de 100.

To clarify, what Sam is referring to regarding the 1.7 million workforce shortage is not a lack of unemployed people but rather a scarcity of individuals willing to take the low-wage jobs in the hospitality industry, where undocumented workers are often valued because industry owners can pay them low wages without providing benefits.

There are over six million documented unemployed people in the U.S., but many documented workers are unwilling to do this brutal work for low pay.

Since the founding of the U.S., immigration law has never truly reflected the needs of the people but has always served the interests of the ruling class. The labor pool of undocumented workers is like a faucet: when they are needed, entry is allowed; once the work is done, the outlet is tightened to deport them.

The Colonial Period to the Creation of the U.S.

In March, the Trump administration deported 252 people, mainly from Venezuela, to El Salvador’s torture camps, where they will be forced to work. This move resembles what previous empires did in the 18th century. In 1717, the Transportation Act enabled the British government to send convicts to its colonies, where they would be converted into indentured servants.

“Before the American Revolution, Britain transported about 50,000 convicts to the American colonies.”

Convicts, who later became indentured servants, were not the largest group of people forced into British colonies that eventually became the U.S.; instead, enslaved Africans were. Over 300,000 enslaved people were brought into North America. Slavery represented a different form of forced migration because, unlike convicts, enslaved people had no possibility of earning their freedom. Enslaved people and their descendants made up a significant portion of the population in British colonies and the U.S. since the 1600s.

Enslaved people were not viewed as immigrants because they faced an experience so torturously different that the story of slavery does not fit into the narrative of migration. Meanwhile, although enslaved people were never granted freedom on North American soil, convicts sent to the colony who became indentured servants eventually gained their freedom after years of forced labor; they were discharged with a small amount of cash, perhaps some land in a new continent, and skills to survive.

Settlers who left Britain for their colonies in North America did so of their own will because they were drawn by the possibility of purchasing cheap land taken from the Indigenous, high wages, and freedom from the King. Many of those people financed their voyage to North America. Settlers are not immigrants.

The Formation of Laws Around Citizenship

In 1790, the U.S. Census, which excluded Native Americans, showed that the population in the U.S. reached 3.9 million people. Additionally, the Census revealed that over 80 percent of the population identified as white. The same year, the U.S. passed its first citizenship law, the 1790 Naturalization Act. This law granted citizenship to “free white persons” who lived in the country for two continuous years.

People of European descent who were propertyless and indentured servants were not considered “free”; thus, gaining citizenship was restricted. White male suffrage was achieved on a state-by-state basis, and the law excluded non-whites, indentured servants, and enslaved people from naturalization.

The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to successfully create new educational and economic opportunities for women. In 1917, the Bolshevik legislative initiatives granted them full civil and political rights, while new laws ensured women were legally equal to men.

Meanwhile, white women in the U.S. did not secure the right to vote until 1920, one hundred forty years after the U.S.’s “founding.” Their right to vote emerged from an intense struggle that mobilized thousands of white women to challenge a system that didn’t acknowledge their civil and political interests. On the contrary, Black women were not allowed to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one hundred and eighty-nine years after the creation of the U.S., which also came after decades of sacrifice, organizing, and struggle.

In addition, when the country was formed, Black people of African descent did not have any rights, whether they were freed or enslaved people; citizenship rights were not extended to them, and that policy was upheld in the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. The case stated that people of African descent were “beings of an inferior order” and were not allowed to become citizens.

However, Congress feared that a significant portion of the foreign-born population with voting rights could threaten national security, particularly with the possibility of going to war. Consequently, Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1795, which extended the residency requirement to five years. It also included a clause stating that a potential citizen could declare their intention to naturalize three years before doing so. Notably, the 1795 act incorporated a religious component, changing the requirement from “good character” to “good moral character.”

During the late 1700s, war between the U.S. and France was possible. As a result, Congress passed a series of bills. In 1798, they passed the Alien Enemies Act, which extended the federal government's power in immigration policy. Notably, it gave then-President John Adams the power to invoke the act to imprison and deport non-citizens during times of war or invasion.

Today, we are seeing Trump use this language that allows him to deport people from Venezuela with no legal pushback because he is calling it an “invasion” and claiming that they are “unlawfully infiltrating” the country. That is not true.

However, these laws increased the residency period for naturalization to 14 years and required individuals to declare their intention to naturalize 5 years prior. The waiting period was reduced to five years in 1802.

The U.S. Civil War ended in 1868, giving rise to the 14th Amendment, which primarily grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. The amendment expanded the right of citizenship to formerly enslaved individuals and all people born on U.S. soil. Two years later, in 1870, the Nationality Act broadened these rights to include “persons of African nativity or descent.”

Native Americans born on tribal lands were not granted the citizenship rights that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, they fought with determination for survival and sovereignty against U.S. expansionism and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. (Similar to how Israel is colonizing Palestine, using religion as a land deed.)

In 1924, the U.S. finally granted Native Americans citizenship through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Before the bill, only some Native Americans were granted citizenship if they joined the military, received land allotments, or were granted citizenship through treaties. The 1924 bill aimed to grant citizenship to all non-citizen Native Americans born in the U.S.

The Mexican Problem

While U.S. settlers used Manifest Destiny to exterminate the indigenous population as they expanded westward, another significant population was the Mexican people, who were forcibly incorporated into the country by the U.S. war of aggression that took fifty-five percent of Mexico. The U.S. and its forces conquered a large portion of Mexican territory during the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848, acquiring what are now the U.S. states of Utah, Nevada, California, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848. It stated that Mexican individuals who remained in the area of those states for one more year would automatically become U.S. citizens. However, like all U.S. treaties with Indigenous peoples, the U.S. government systematically violated this agreement.

With the U.S. government being the new overseers of the new territory in the Southwest, new struggles emerged for the indigenous people, revealing Congress’s racism.

The white-dominant society portrayed Mexicans as biologically inferior. Therefore, the fact that Mexicans from the Southwest could be naturalized under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo posed a threat to white-only citizenship. Because of the U.S. conquest of the new territory, it was nearly impossible to remove them on a legal basis, and therefore, they faced new racist challenges. What came next was a racist media campaign against Mexicans.

Many Mexican workers found employment in agriculture across the Southwest. However, from 1900 to 1909, Mexican immigration was low, comprising only .6 percent of the total immigration to the U.S. Different class interests disputed their future. Congress denied Mexicans in the Southwest their voting and workers' rights. Simultaneously, growers and business developers depended on exploiting their labor for profit. They testified before Congress about the value of their Mexican workers, effectively stalling restrictive legislation.

Between 1910 and the 1920s, Mexican migration increased as Chinese and Japanese agricultural workers departed, and people fleeing violence during the Mexican Revolution sought stability and employment. However, during the next decade, the demand for their labor declined with the start of the Great Depression. What followed was a campaign by the Border Patrol to detain Mexicans, which also included U.S.-born citizens, and deport them across the border—something that Trump mentioned on July 1st, stating he plans to do next: deport U.S.-born citizens.

When the U.S. entered World War II, it renewed efforts to recruit Mexican workers for wartime production, once again opening the faucet to keep the system operating.

The 1924 Immigration Act helped growers prevent Congress from passing more restrictive laws because it did not set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Western Hemisphere who could enter the United States. During this time, politicians and the press began, much like today, to inflame anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant sentiments. For four years, from 1926 to 1930, Congressmen attempted to expand the quotas to include Mexico and the entire Western Hemisphere.

The issue of what to do with Mexicans in the Southwest was such a concern for Congress that they placed the “Mexican problem” on their agenda. Thus, instead of providing a humane pathway to live in the U.S., they sought ways to remove them and treat them as second-class citizens in their ancestral land.

The Mexican people have endured systemic violence from the U.S. ruling class in various forms to strip away their political and labor rights since their land was taken by force one hundred and seventy-seven years ago. They’ve whipped up racist campaigns to stigmatize Mexicans as “illegal” or “alien” people. Unlike other immigrant groups in the U.S., a large portion of the Mexican people came under U.S. rule as a result of U.S. Imperialism.

Since then, the Mexican community has been systematically and consistently denied political rights and has struggled for better working conditions and equality at every turn.

In the 1950s, during an economic boom fueled by the Bracero program, millions of Mexicans migrated to the U.S. as “guest workers” from 1942 to 1964. The U.S. government organized a racist “operation wetback” that led to the deportation of over 1 million undocumented immigrants. Deportation as a tactic to further divide and conquer the Mexican people is now a multibillion-dollar industry that extends beyond the people of Mexico. Today, approximately forty-three percent of people detained by ICE are from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, according to data from the American Immigration Council.

In contrast, over 200,000 European immigrants were able to overturn their legal status between 1925 and 1965. In other words, Mexicans were brought in to work the fields in their ancestral lands, only to be deported after the growers exploited their labor.

‘Undesirable’ Countries and the Quota System

The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act) limited the number of immigrants allowed into the country through a national origins quota. The quota permitted immigration visas to two percent of the total number of individuals of each nationality in the U.S., as recorded in the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

By establishing a hierarchy among European peoples, the 1924 Immigration Act also underscored a notion of nationality that excluded non-white individuals. A minimal quota was set for individuals from African countries, and several countries were considered “ineligible for citizenship,” including those from various parts of Asia, such as Japan, Thailand, and India.

The 1924 Immigration Act excluded Asians from citizenship, particularly the Japanese, who were not previously barred from immigrating but were now admitted to the U.S. This set of laws upset Japanese officials, as it violated the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Despite the tension between the two nations, Congress was more concerned with preserving the nation's racial composition than promoting good diplomacy with Japan.

The American Industrial Revolution and Immigration

The period from the 1850s to the 1900s was an era of industrialization in the U.S., a time of urbanization and immigration that propelled the nation toward developing its infrastructure and high-tech industries. During the Industrial Revolution, a significant wave of immigration occurred, transforming societies and economies worldwide. People sought economic opportunities, escaped violence, or had no choice but to leave their homeland, resulting in a massive demographic shift and cultural changes in both the sending and receiving countries. Those who welcomed a large influx of immigrants witnessed their economy and development flourish, while those who lost their indigenous populations struggled to recover economically.

The 19th century introduced new techniques and technologies that revolutionized the capitalist economy into a fully-fledged industrial profit-making system. The foundations of the new economy rested on the country’s westward expansion, which involved taking land from the indigenous people and developing railroads and factories across the nation, enabling the establishment of goods and services in the new territory.

The new projects peppered across the country required cheap labor willing to do the most brutal and dangerous manual labor jobs. A large portion of workers were from China, who were escaping colonialism and all its manifestations, like famine and violence. Chinese workers built enormous tracts of the U.S. railroad system, specifically in the West. As the California Gold Rush declined, so did the demand for cheap labor.

The pool of immigrant Chinese workers competed with white workers for survival. This led to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred new Chinese workers from entering the U.S. Those already on U.S. soil were also ineligible for citizenship. The act expanded to include all Asian people except those from Japan.

It was not until 1898 that birthright citizenship was established in the United States.

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was the first example of an overtly racist immigration law passed in the U.S. In contrast, it represented an open borders policy for white immigrants from Europe. This policy remained in effect until the Immigration Act of 1924 and the Quota Act of 1921. Since the act was passed, we’ve seen multiple laws enacted that deny travel, citizenship, and fundamental rights to people from majority Muslim countries, as well as to nations the U.S. considers an “enemy” for charting their path of independence, such as Iran, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Although the Chinese Exclusion Act is the first example of racist immigration law in the U.S., one could argue that denying citizenship to everyone, specifically to people of color, intentionally to maximize profit, is the initial act of a racist system and a racist government body that maintains that status quo.

A War From the Depths of Time

Our social progress and expansion of democratic rights for the working class can be traced through social movements. When people are organized, they can demand what is rightfully theirs, and social pressure compels the government to enact laws that reflect those demands. This has led to significant achievements, including the eight-hour workday, social security, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and many more.

The same is true for our immigration laws, which offer some hope to our undocumented community by allowing them to no longer live in the shadows when laws are enacted in their favor.

In the 1980s, the sanctuary city movement started as a campaign to offer refuge and protection to Central American refugees fleeing U.S.-supported civil wars that aimed to crush national liberation efforts, mainly led by Marxist groups. However, U.S. immigration policies denied asylum to those fleeing violence. Over one million people from Central America migrated to the U.S.

The sanctuary city movement, led by churches, faith-based organizations, and synagogues, formed the “sacred resistance” that turned places of worship into sanctuaries for Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum seekers, defying federal authorities to promote humanitarian aid, legal reform, and an end to U.S. intervention in Central America.

The sanctuary city movement and other forms of protest compelled the Reagan administration, which was not an advocate for immigrant rights, to sign the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Ultimately, over two million people were approved for permanent residence.

In the 1990s, people mobilized against Prop 187, known as the “Save Our State” bill on California's ballot, which aimed to deny public services like education, healthcare, and social services to undocumented immigrants. The bill also included a requirement that public officials, including healthcare professionals and teachers, report suspected undocumented individuals to immigration authorities. 

The bill passed with 58.92% of the vote; however, it was challenged in court and subsequently voided due to legal issues, primarily because of public outcry, as thousands took to the streets of Los Angeles on October 16, 1994.

The same can be said about Obama’s decision to sign the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on June 15, 2012. DACA provided temporary protection from deportation and allowed eligible undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to apply for work permits and attend school.

This decision followed constant protests by immigrant rights activists against Obama’s deportation policies and his failure to pass the DREAM Act, which offered a pathway to citizenship, unlike DACA, which gives immigrants temporary protection and is revocable. Obama was called the “Deporter-In-Chief” for deporting (removals) over two million people, more than any other president before him.

The protest persisted after DACA was signed.

Video: Jennicet Gutiérrez, Transgender and immigrant rights activist from Mexico interrupts Obama in 2015. Jennicet is a founding member of La Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement.

Gutiérrez said: “President Obama, stop the torture and abuse of trans women in detention centers.”

In addition, “There is no pride in how LGBTQ and transgender immigrants are treated in this country. If the president wants to celebrate with us, he should release the LGBTQ immigrants locked up in detention centers immediately.”

Video: President Obama is interrupted by a young immigration activist who demands that the President use his executive power to halt deportations during a speech in San Francisco about immigration reform. (2013)

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In Los Angeles, the city saw one of the largest immigrant rights marches on May 1, 2006, International Workers Day, where between one and two million people marched downtown in response to The Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, also known as the “Sensenbrenner Bill,” for its sponsor in the House of Representative Jim Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin. The march was also called “Day Without an Immigrant.”

That movement continued in 2010 when thousands of people gathered in Arizona to oppose Senate Bill 1070. SB1070 required police to verify the immigration status of anyone they stopped and suspected of being in the country illegally.

Los Angeles has long been a leader in the immigrant rights movement, and it continues to lead today. In Trump’s first months in office, we saw high school students walk out of school to protest his immigration policies. Also, in the last thirty days, LA has been occupied by the National Guard, Marines, and Federal/ICE/CBP agents kidnapping our relatives, and people are protesting their presence everywhere they appear.

It's always the social movements of the people when they come together under a common struggle against a shared enemy, where the politics are sharp; it's that movement that can bring about radical change to society. Today, millions of people are witnessing that no government institution is stepping up to protect and defend our undocumented community.

Local police protect federal agents as they kidnap our neighbors, while the Democratic Party does nothing. Meanwhile, both parties fully support a live-streamed genocide in Gaza and tell us that Palestinian lives don’t matter. How can we ever think they care about our families?

It is the people risking their lives against oppressive state forces who are driving change. Today’s activists and organizers are charting a new path of revolutionary optimism, in the belly of the beast.

True comprehensive immigration reform and equality for immigrants can be achieved through shared struggle in the streets. It is not the Democrats or the Republicans that are going to save us. Rejecting both bourgeois political parties and building an independent pro-immigrant rights movement interconnected with other social movements can create the change we need.

Author’s note: This article was co-published with Geopolitical Economy Report and archived here.

Donald Trump and his supporters base their anti-immigrant arguments on the assertion that immigrants have broken the law. Corporate media commentators reinforce this narrative, labeling undocumented immigrants as “illegal aliens” and “criminals” while failing to mention that US immigration law can change, often quite dramatically, with each administration.

Generally, immigration law evolves to meet the capitalist system’s demand for low-paid labor. Immigration and citizenship policies are not fixed standards for every individual. They have double standards rooted in racism and have always served as a tool of institutional discrimination.

Consequently, the anti-immigrant narrative stigmatizes specific populations as “socially undesirable” as corporations rake in record profits from their labor. Meanwhile, undocumented workers face attacks by racist mobs and the police.

President Trump wasted no time in his second term to sign executive orders to deport migrants to countries across Latin America. In addition, Trump is pushing ICE to meet a quota of 1,200 to 1,500 arrests per day. As a result, communities are coming together to deny ICE agents access to apartment buildings and neighborhoods.

During Trump’s first presidential term, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country, immigrants became essential workers. Their labor in critical industries such as food services, agriculture, transit, retail, and the gig economy was a significant factor in keeping the economy running. Nevertheless, immigrants are paid less than citizens and often do not have access to public healthcare programs.

While they don’t benefit from federal social programs, undocumented immigrants also pay taxes — nearly $100 billion per year. This crucial fact is often overlooked in policy and political debates about undocumented immigration.

Following the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrants played a significant role in the recovery. Many never stopped working during the pandemic, and other immigrants were among the first to return to work.

The consequences of mass deportation in the United States would have nationwide repercussions across all sectors of the economy and could potentially cause a severe crisis.

Immigrants Work Essential Jobs That Keep US Society Running

The undocumented community in the US is often portrayed as an unknown group of 11 million people “living in the shadows.” However, they play a central role in the economy.

Immigrants are workers and consumers who purchase household items and food daily to sustain themselves. In addition, landlords and banks profit from the mortgages and rents that these workers pay.

In 2019, the American Community Survey (ACS) produced an analysis with data from the New American Economy that stated:

Here’s a breakdown of four major state economies based on American Community Survey (ACS) data from the New American Economy:

• California: 27% immigrant population, and immigrant spending power is $318 billion

• New York: 22% immigrant population, and immigrant spending power is $130 billion

• Texas: 17% immigrant population, and immigrant spending power is $120 billion.

• Florida: 21% immigrant population, and immigrant spending power is $105 billion.

In 2020, 19.8 million foreign-born “essential” workers were employed across all sectors of the US economy, whether in “high-skill” or “low-skill” jobs.

The vast majority of immigrants, 69%, worked essential jobs, including 74% of undocumented immigrants. This was higher than native-born individuals, 65% of whom held 65 essential jobs during the pandemic.

Over one-fifth of the food supply chain's employees were born outside the US. These workers harvest fruits and vegetables, grow crops, process meat, engage in wholesale or retail sales, and transport products and materials.

They also represent more than 30% of physically demanding jobs, such as farm laborers, graders and sorters, meat processing workers, and those in commercial bakeries and crop production.

Undocumented Immigrants Pay Nearly $100 Billion in Taxes Per Year

Undocumented immigrants not only drive the economy forward through their continuous work, but in 2022, they paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. Of that amount, $59.4 billion was allocated to the federal government, while $37.3 billion was allocated to state and local governments.

Additionally, their contributions to the tax system totaled $8,889 per person in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Thus, for every million undocumented immigrants living in the country, public services benefit from an extra $8.9 billion in tax revenue.

Despite their contributions to the economy and taxes, more than a third of their tax dollars are used to fund programs they cannot access due to their legal status.

In 2022, undocumented workers contributed $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance, $25.7 billion in Social Security, and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, all of which they do not have access to.

Immigrants Pay $20.6 Billion in Mortgages Every Year

In addition to their roles in the workforce, undocumented workers significantly contribute to the economy through rent and mortgage payments. They own 1.6 million homes, resulting in $20.6 billion in annual mortgage payments.

In comparison, renters contribute $49.1 billion in rental payments annually, according to the Center for American Progress.

Granting citizenship to undocumented workers would boost their earnings and productivity, ultimately leading to higher tax contributions and increased local spending.

An extensive deportation program can have a significant impact on household incomes. For example, mixed-status households would see their median household income decrease from $41,300 to $22,000, a 47% decrease. According to the Center for Migration Studies‘ research, this could push millions of families struggling to survive into poverty.

The nation’s housing market would be at risk because 1.6 million mortgages could disappear.

Mass deportations could lead to a significant economic recession. In a 2016 analysis, Ryan Edwards and Francesc Ortega concluded that:

For comparison, US GDP shrunk by 2.5% in 2008 during the financial crisis.

People Are Standing Up For Immigrant Rights

Moving forward with a mass deportation plan would trigger a significant housing, labor, economic, and healthcare crisis nationwide — one that the country has never witnessed before.

As working-class communities across the country prepare for the possibility of increased ICE presence, people are organizing their neighborhoods to prevent their families from being kidnapped by state agents.

Lawmakers and politicians should consider the extensive consequences in both the short term and the long term.

The narrative labeling undocumented individuals as “criminals” enables the state to instill fear in communities and break apart families.

Despite these fearful tactics, the US is also seeing one of the largest immigrant rights movements in its history.

Over several days in February, high school students walked out of class across Los Angeles and organized large marches to protest Trump’s anti-immigrant policies.

Author’s note: This article was originally published with The Daily Chela on July 2nd, 2020. It has been republished and archived here.

On March 13, police broke into Breonna Taylor’s house in Louisville, Kentucky, and poured eight bullets into her body. On June 2nd, in Vallejo, California, a police officer killed Sean Monterrosa, who was on his knees. On June 6th, California Highway Patrol fired over 40 rounds in a residential neighborhood in Oakland and killed Erik Salgado. On June 18th, in Gardena, California, Andrés Guardado was shot in the back and murdered by Los Angeles Sheriffs.

For five centuries, we have survived and resisted police brutality and systemic racism. Now, with cell phones, the system can no longer deny the mistreatment, brutality, and lives lost.

Following the murder of George Floyd, no one can sweep our experience under the rug any longer. A historic upsurge has brought different peoples together in the fight against systemic racism.

This alliance between Black and brown communities is a legacy of the maroons who fought against slavery and the rebellious 1960s and 1970s when we again fought against our common enemy.

The Underground Railroad to México

Former president of Mexico, Vicente Guerrero, who was of mixed descent that included African heritage, abolished slavery in 1829. Tejanos, or Mexicans that resided in Texas, were also known as “conductores” because they helped safeguard slaves into Mexico.

This included various forms of escaping, such as the Underground Railroad, sneaking aboard ferries headed to Mexico, liberating horses, and risking everything on foot.

We shouldn’t over-glorify Mexico at the time because there was still a colonial-imposed system of indentured servitude.

However, for up to 10,000 kidnapped Africans, Mexico did represent a new life.

Slave-owning states in the South pushed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 through Congress, forcing northern states to return “maroons” and “escapees.” The U.S. attempted to get Mexico to sign the treaty, but Mexico refused, insisting that all enslaved people who set foot in Mexico were free.

Some U.S. slave owners sent their own slave catchers to illegally re-kidnap escapees in Mexico. However, it didn’t always work because people in Mexico often helped “runaways” stay clear of any slave catchers.

The Rainbow Coalition

Throughout the country in the 1960s and 1970s, the social conditions that marginalized people experienced sparked various political responses, rebellions, and alliances.

The Black Liberation Movement forged strategic, revolutionary political alliances with the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Young Lords, the Young Patriots from the Appalachian Mountains, and the Brown Berets. The Black nation stood alongside all marginalized people in their struggle for justice.

These organizations embraced the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) basic demands for employment, housing, education, and community control of the police.

As Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez, founder of the “Young Lords,” said:

In 1969, Chairman Fred Hampton founded the Rainbow Coalition along with William “Preacherman” Fesperman of the Young Patriots Organization, the Young Lords, the Lincoln Park Poor People’s Coalition, Students for a Democratic Society, the Brown Berets, the Red Guard Party, and the American Indian Movement.

A pillar of their work was the fight against police brutality, which also affected brown and poor communities.

It was the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program that infiltrated, fragmented and destroyed these movements and organizations. Yet despite police and FBI repression, Black, brown, and poor white organizers built a foundation for the movements of today.

BLM and Solidarity Today

The Black Lives Matter movement was born from the acquittal of George Zimmerman after he murdered 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012. Since then, there have been a number of uprisings in the Black community that were a direct result of police brutality in Ferguson, Baltimore, and beyond.

The BLM movement has worked in solidarity with other movements since its creation. For example, in 2016, BLM joined the fight against deportations as former president Barack Obama deported more people than any president.

The same year, BLM joined the Indigenous movement and fought alongside the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters. Activists linked the history of stolen land and genocide with the history of stolen labor in America. In 2017, BLM joined the nationwide labor movement in the Fight For $15.

In June 2018, BLM joined the immigrant rights movement in San Diego at the border to demand just and humane treatment of immigrants and refugees seeking asylum. Today, the immigrant rights movement and the Indigenous movement stand with the Black freedom movement.

These uprisings radicalized our youth in Black and brown communities.

Chairman Fred Hampton of the Chicago BPP said:

We’re not only protesting but building alliances and coalitions to work with each other for future struggles. Over 60 countries, from Palestine to Mexico, have taken the streets to bring awareness of systemic racism.

The message is clear: the white supremacist knee on George Floyd’s neck is the same knee choking Mexico since 1848.

Together We Can Win

Malcolm X said, “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” Racism is a tool used by the system to keep us divided and conquered. It is how it justifies the over-policing and incarceration of our communities.

The system shuts down any social movements that will keep us from uniting and winning systemic change and power.

Now, people are realizing that what is needed in our communities is organizational unity, dignified jobs, and a relevant education, not more police.

Like previous generations, we Black and brown people have to continue to work together with poor and progressive whites and all oppressed people. Until we’re all free.

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Author’s note: This article was originally published with ANTICONQUISTA on January 4th, 2021. It has been republished and archived here.

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it” was the tweet birthed by billionaire Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla Motors, on July 25, in reference to the right-wing coup forced upon the Bolivian people at the hands of Wall Street. The reason? Lithium.

U.S. imperial history is vast, dating back to the extermination of Indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans. In fact, the U.S. was born in its expansion and accumulation. Its sordid pursuit of Manifest Destiny first bore fruit in Latin America and the Caribbean. So it’s only natural that this perfecter of capitalism-imperialism continues to allow corporations to oppress any nation it desires for their natural resources. The U.S. state often advocates on behalf of multinational corporations, and more often than not, the capitalists and the elected officials are in visible rotation.

This collusion between the state and capital would bring forth the largest empire in human history — the United States of America — with a leading role played by its expansive military force. Within the political structure, Republicans and Democrats alike regularly criminalize immigrant communities. However, they fail to mention why people migrate. For Latins in the U.S., our journey here is a result of the vicious domination of the economic and political institutions of our homelands.

Mexico and Neoliberalism

Mexico is on the receiving end of the U.S. imperial knife. In the mid-1800s, the U.S. invaded and robbed vast swaths of Mexico’s northern territory, including the current state of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. These lands represented 55 percent of its national territory at the time. Though the physical war ended, the war for natural resources had just begun.

Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 resulted from the hard-fought victories of the Mexican Revolution, led by Emiliano Zapata and Francisco “Pancho” Villa. It extends the rights of the Mexican people to include water, minerals, and land. It also grants the state authority to expropriate land to redistribute to eligible agrarian communities. Since 1917, Mexico’s ruling class has attacked this article.

In 1991, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari stood before the federal legislature and fought to remove Article 27’s guarantees. These guarantees banned corporations and foreign investors from purchasing collectivized rural land holdings (or ejidos), a communal organization system that dates back to Latin America’s Indigenous ancestors. His plan passed. What followed was the massive theft of land from Indigenous communities to the highest-bidding corporations, erasing one of the most significant victories of the Mexican Revolution.

The truth about the Northern American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, is evident by examining the living conditions of Mexican society. In 2017, the Center for Economic and Policy Research reported:

Thus, NAFTA generated an enormous displacement of the working class at a time when Mexico was experiencing a population boom. Between 1900 and 1990, the population of Mexico grew from 14 million to 82 million. These factors contributed to the large migration of workers from Mexico to the U.S. during the 20th century.

U.S. Banks Finance Murder and Misery

The people of Latin America continue to suffer at the hands of the cartels. However, cartels can only function successfully because of the U.S. banking system. In March 2010, executives of former bank Wachovia admitted to laundering $378 billion in drug money. Wachovia’s anti-money laundering director Martin Woods told Bloomberg, “It’s the banks laundering money for the cartels that finance the tragedy (in Mexico).” Wachovia is not alone — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and HSBC are part of a long history of funneling dirty money through the banks at the cost of human life.

In 1935, Marine General Smedley Butler, a highly decorated soldier in U.S. history, said:

The people of Latin America have faced centuries of violence as a result of colonial and imperial domination. While media pundits debate over “criminals” invading the country, they ignore the driving force of human migration. Immigrants are the by-products of a global structure that has destroyed their homeland. This allows capital and goods to flow freely across borders but labels workers as “aliens.”

Rebellion

When the hand of the “free market” aggressively tries to grip Latin American countries, it is met with a rebellion. In the mid-1970s, the U.S. financed and trained dictators in the region through the Schools of Americas program, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation. The people of Nicaragua overthrew the Somoza family dictatorship with the leadership of Frente Sandinista para la Liberación Nacional, FSLN. This inspired neighboring country El Salvador to form the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN, in the struggle against U.S.-trained dictators ruling their country.

Indigenous communities struggle to self-determine their land and resources. They resist selling their resources to mining, oil, and tourist industries at the highest bid. They also fight against poverty, which forces them to migrate.

Capitalist politicians continue their anti-immigration arguments on the assertion that we are breaking the law and smuggling drugs but ignore the root causes that force people to escape their homelands destroyed by imperialism. Here, we are systematically denied our rights while contributing millions in taxes and essential labor. The immigrant rights struggle is, in essence, a fight against a parasitic system built for the profit of Wall Street. It’s time everyone connected these essential dots.