In their own perverted way, the representatives of this system—from Trump “all the way” to Bernie Sanders—have hit on a truth. They all say that this system of theirs faces a massive crisis over immigration. In that they are right. Where they are wrong and/or lying is that:
- It is their system that has caused, and made worse, this crisis;
- Their system has no answers to it;
- The revolution does.
We’ll get to that answer—the solution to the “crisis”—in a minute. But first, let’s be clear on the problem. Imperialism is a system where a handful of “advanced” capitalist countries in Europe, North America, and parts of Asia dominate and exploit the whole rest of the world. The capitalists and then the imperialists have plundered the resources and people of South and Central America, Asia, and Africa for five centuries. These international gangsters have ripped apart the societies and deformed and dominated the economies of people after people, country after country. Constant wars and occupations—almost all of which can be laid at the doorsteps of the imperialist powers—create yet further misery. To top it all, the destruction of the environment (overwhelmingly the fault of these imperialist powers and the U.S. in particular) gives rise to massive drought and makes many of these countries unable to grow food and other necessities.
Because of all this, tens of millions of human beings in these countries cannot survive and are desperately seeking a haven in the countries that are responsible for their suffering. Tomorrow it will be hundreds of millions; and after that billions. Think about it.
And think about what YOU would do in their situation. Starvation or the threat of death by government or gang violence makes people take risks. Just around the Mexico-U.S. border, hundreds of people die every single year in the desert, seeking to evade the heartless border patrols.
Inflaming, Distorting, and Concealing: All in a Day’s Work for Representatives of this System
And what do the representatives of this system have to say?
The fascist Trump blames the immigrants themselves. He whips his base into a frenzy of hatred against them. He fans the flames of white supremacy still higher and “weaponizes” it for his whole fascist program.
The liberals may differ on the optics and they have some actual differences, but what is most striking is what they share with Trump. Remember, Obama set the record for deportations and told everybody after the elections that he and Trump were “on the same team.” He “worked with” Central American countries to stop immigrants before they even got to the border.
This week, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said he too wants a wall; but he wants to let in “high IQ” immigrants. He puts the liberal logic out there very plainly: “[I]n an era when more and more countries will fracture under environmental, population, criminal and technological stresses, we simply cannot take everyone who shows up at our border.” Friedman conceals the fact these “stresses” are caused by imperialism. And he doesn’t dare spell out the consequences of his conclusion: that the huge majority of people who are kept out of the U.S. should shut up and literally drop dead, so that the “gated communities” of the imperialist countries continue to gorge themselves with a clear conscience.
Bullshit from Bernie, or BS from BS
And then there’s the so-called radical Bernie Sanders. In his epic pander session on FOX News, Sanders said, “We need border security, of course we do. Who argues with that? That goes without saying. I happen to believe that there are more cost-effective ways to do that than simply building a wall.”
Who argues with that? WE argue with that. Take that first sentence—just who the hell is the “we” BS refers to? “We” the privileged Americans who consume 25 percent of the world’s resources with just 5 percent of its people; or we the more than seven billion on this planet?
“Border security?” Give us a break, BS—tell it to the Native Americans and Mexicans whose land the U.S. ripped off through force; tell it to the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Afghans and the masses in the dozens of other countries that the U.S. has invaded.
In Iowa last year, Sanders went further, answering a question on “open borders”: “[I]f your point is you open the borders, my God, you know, there’s a lot of poverty in this world, and you’re gonna have people from all over the world. And I don’t think that’s something we can do at this point. We can’t do it.” The American chauvinism, willful ignorance, and selfishness just drips from his every sentence.
So: from right to so-called left and all stops in between, every single one of these representatives ends up in the same place: let millions die, either from starvation or death in the deserts or on the sea.
There IS an Answer
But the revolution does have an answer. It’s in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, by Bob Avakian. The Constitution goes through the history of immigration in the USA and the way in which today “great numbers of immigrants ... were driven to the U.S., many of whom were not able to secure legal entry and consequently were forced to live in the shadows and remain vulnerable to extreme exploitation as well as to discrimination and to violence and terror carried out by the state and by mobs encouraged by reactionary policies, actions and statements of the government and government officials,” and how this was used to make things even worse. The Constitution goes on to lay out the rules of citizenship—that anyone residing in the territory of the new socialist republic at the time of its founding will be citizens, except for those who led the counter-revolution or committed war crimes and/or other crimes against humanity. And there are procedures outlined for people seeking residency, asylum, and citizenship.
But the main point is this:
“The orientation of the New Socialist Republic in North America is to welcome immigrants from all over the world who have a sincere desire to contribute to the goals and objectives of this Republic...” [emphasis added]. The rules to facilitate this on the right basis are then laid out, but the basic orientation is clear—and it is not miles apart but a whole world away from what the imperialist representatives, even the most “radical” among them, stand for.
Coming from that understanding, revolutionaries must join with others in fierce and determined resistance to the outrages now happening, and this can have a powerful effect on how millions see what is possible. In doing so, and in going to people who are either passive or confused in the face of this, the movement for revolution must clearly make the point:
Either live with what will be continued and worsening persecution of people who have been driven from their homelands by this criminal system, shutting your eyes and ears against the bones and tears of your fellow human beings; or, MAKE REVOLUTION.
The choice—and the responsibility—is yours.
The demonization, criminalization and deportations of immigrants.
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Q&A: Bob Avakian's Answer to People Who Complain about Immigrants Crossing Borders
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Authored by Bob Avakian, and adopted by the Central Committee of the RCP
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