Below are a few thoughts the Internationalist Workers’ Group has composed on the mass ICE raids directed at the working class. Though they cover different aspects, the political throughline must be made clear: These attacks on our class must be met with a response by our class. This starts with the defense of our interests in stopping the killing and kidnapping of our class siblings and in demanding a higher standard of living and ends with the future proletarian revolution where all class distinctions will be done away with for good.

ICE’s Fear and Hate­ Mongering

ICE: The cold fear that has begun to run in our veins. Immigration police exist in a capitalist state for one real reason above all others; to incite fear. The bourgeoisie can sense our unrest. The working class grows angry, seething masses churning with rage at abuse and unmet needs. The bourgeoisie need to quell this rage to continue their work, their war preparation, so they send out their barking dogs, their mindless beasts meant to bite us and scare us into submission. Coworkers, friends, family members, we all know someone terrified, constantly looking over their shoulder, not because of anything they have done wrong, but the color of their skin or the spelling of their name.

Capitalism wants us afraid, shaken, divided. Xenophobic propaganda is shoved down our throats, flooding any news station that will air the vile substance. The working class is under attack, not just in the US, but everywhere. We are locked into our borders, fed nationalist propaganda, and prepped as soldiers for war like pigs for slaughter. They do this because the working class has power. Class consciousness, the thing that binds us in our fight for existence, our battle against class division, is something that terrifies capitalists to their core.

Distracting the working class in a time of general unrest is the key to getting away with blatant class oppression. The capitalists keep us focused on symptoms of the issue instead of the cause: class society. Would this be possible if we didn’t live in a society where wealth is power? Would ICE terrorize the streets if we lived not under a dictator, but as the dictatorship of the proletariat? If we lived as a society of people working to fulfill our needs instead of lining the pockets of the bourgeoisie? If we were not divided by borders and petty disputes, if we did not function on what only one person could own, but what we as a people could accomplish together? Down with class society! Down with walls and detainment centers! Down with fat capitalists that feed while we starve!

The Fight So Far

Since the mass raids in Los Angeles in June, there has been a continuous wave of spontaneous and coordinated resistance. Protests of thousands have blocked ICE activity, be it the stopping of ICE vehicles, the blockading of detention facilities, or throwing snowballs at ICE agents. Though by no means universal, those actions have had a tangible effect on ICE’s ability to kidnap migrant workers. In addition to this, workers have set up basic means of self­-defence. Immigrant workers regularly establish warning systems to notify each other of ICE presence, protecting themselves against raids. Non-immigrant workers will often disrupt the detainment of their neighbors. Most encouragingly, workers, especially in the education and hospitality sectors, will often set up workplace committees in preparation for ICE raids, developing strategies to protect the migrant workers or students and to fight these violent attacks. In these cases, state terror has been met with class solidarity.

As much as these actions set an example for the rest of the class, the movement against ICE and deportations has, of now, failed to find its true home in class politics. How it may get there will be discussed at the end of this piece, but for now we will emphasize that the working class must clear out the activists and politicians who block the way. Just as in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests, the initiative of workers is funneled into bourgeois reformism led by Democratic politicians and “community leaders” or activist groups whose activity is separated from the mass of workers and often leads to absurd, ineffectual actions like dance parties outside of detention centers or making returns of ice scrapers to Home Depot as protest.

Why the Capitalist Class is United on Deportations

For decades, measures taken against migrant workers have grown more repressive. Each successive administration is now blowing the deportation numbers of the previous one out of the water. We see the use of concentration camps, forced sterilizations and surgeries, widespread sexual abuse, and deaths in custody all of which are recent developments in the state’s attack on migrant workers. To find anything resembling this, you would have to search prior to the 1960s. This direction is not the result of a fickle perspective to be washed away by the passage of time. It is driven by what propels our class enemies.

The crisis of profitability is an inescapable problem that haunts the capitalist class. The destruction of WW2 allowed capitalists to enter a short lived “golden age” in the eyes of its supporters. What had occurred was a new cycle of accumulation began. State capitalist tendencies that grew out of the war expanded and rubble was resurrected as factories, to the benefit of the capitalist class. As this happened, capitals’ tendency to lower the rate of profit resummoned the need for expediencies against a threat believed to be dead and buried. To ward this off, the offensive against the working class intensified. Blows fell on its migrant section, which was ripe for increased exploitation. What emerged was a growing threat of deportation and all that entailed as a means of depressing wages. So long as there is a glut of migrants, capitalists can deport workers to let it be known that this is no idle threat.

What shapes capitalist policy and nitpicking on this issue is the cost and benefit in terms of the strength of capitalists united through their state. Early in the cold war, a laid­back approach was favored to attract specialists given this was the only edge the USSR could have had over the US. As it was eclipsed and the pressure of profitability mounted, capitalists shifted toward terror. Starting with the 1st Trump administration and continued by the Biden and current administration is the move towards decoupling economic relations with China and increasing domestic production, which calls for cheap construction of factories, power plants and infrastructure. Alongside this is the tech sector’s increasing demand for data centers, power plants and infrastructure. The construction sector makes extensive use of migrant labor given the ease of contractor based fraud and the sporadic nature of the industry. The climate crisis, even in the best case scenario, will create the largest mass migration event in human history, making the cost of terror all the cheaper and the weight of “excess” migrants more pressing. Left unchecked, the force that will end the increased attacks on migrant workers is the cycle of accumulation restarting through a new world war.

Why the Democrats are a Pseudo-Opposition to the Regime of Deportations

A common response to ICE’s escalating terror is the desire for Democrats to regain control of the government to alleviate the problem. And while nobody enjoys throwing cold water on the hope that the situation might improve, it would be a cruel lie to pretend that Democrats would help. First, there’s the fact that Democratic politicians consistently support all forms of policing, including border enforcement generally and ICE specifically. Even in the midst of widespread anti­ICE protests over immigration raids in LA, 75 House Democrats voted in favor of a resolution expressing gratitude toward ICE. More concretely, when Democrats have gained power in the past, the budget for ICE has grown significantly. Despite their occasional claims to the contrary, Democrats have proven unwilling or unable to rein in even the worst abuses of ICE. Regardless of any campaign promises, Democrats have clearly shown that they will enable ICE in whatever terror it wishes to commit. The idea that the same politicians who have consistently given ICE a blank check to terrorize immigrants will suddenly take a principled stand against ICE is wishful thinking.

Of course, there is the possibility of electing some number of more ‘progressive’ Democrats, who haven’t already shown that they will side with ICE over the people it terrorizes. But even if we grant that, in the near future, not only are all of the most progressive Democrats sincere in their beliefs, but also successful in gaining power, a deeper problem would remain. They would have to run the state, assuming they gained control of it, and the terror of ICE is an indispensable part of running the American nation­state.

The ever fiercer competition of a deepening global economic crisis doesn’t allow politicians the option to surrender massive opportunities for profit. That’s why terrorizing immigrants into accepting lower wages (while removing immigrants whose presence is unprofitable to American national capital) is not optional for anyone who intends to run the state.

Note that this isn’t an issue for those of us who want to smash the state instead of administering it. But even the most progressive of Democrats obviously don’t share that goal. They are liberal patriots, through and through, and when push comes to shove, they will oversee whatever atrocities are necessary to protect the American state.

The Way Forward

As with the fight in the workplace, the only way forward is through the self-organization of our class. The anti-deportation movement, where it exists, is currently inter­class in nature, both in composition and in its politics. If we are to have any chance at winning this fight, this must change. Capitalists and their representatives, large and small, already have a means of strength through unity: their state. It is within their interests to channel all outrage into useless avenues. Our class on the other hand initially finds strength and its own self­-awareness through the defense of our interests, which can then develop into an offensive. What this could look like is preventing deportations at your workplace and incorporating economic demands to expand the struggle, without waiting for some official sanctioning.

Action, if it is to lead anywhere, must be linked to a class capable of addressing the task at hand. When it comes to opposing something important to a ruling class’s interests, activism can only exist as a substitute for a real threat. We cannot expect links between revolutionary perspectives and the class to spring out of nowhere. What is needed is an international communist party worthy of the claim, created through embedding ourselves in the class struggle and fighting on our own class’s terrain. From there we can bring an end to attacks on migrant workers and the capitalist mode of production that has given rise to it.

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