THE BRONX, April 15—The police picked on the wrong family when they arrested Yajaira Saavedra. She and her family own La Morada restaurant, a place of antiracism and fightback for undocumented and immigrant workers. As racist cops carried out business as usual in the South Bronx, terrorizing Black and Latin workers, our class was ready to fight back.
The family called a community press conference. Progressive Labor Party particiapted and recognizes it as part of a bigger fight against capitalism and racism. “I was under the impression that I was in a sanctuary city, but more barriers are being placed by the mass policing that targets unjustly the working class like my family and local street vendors,” Natalia Mendez, the mother of the family, told the press (Civil Eats, 1/18). Clearly, sanctuary is no protection for workers.
Harassed by police
On January 11, Yajaira Saavedra, daughter of Natalia, saw the New York Police Department (NYPD) carrying out a sting operation outside of La Morada and began filming the incident. She was unaware that three plainclothes cops were inside the restaurant. One demanded that she stop recording. After revealing that he was an undercover cop, he ordered her to shut down the restaurant. When she demanded a warrant, he replied “I don’t have a warrant, but I have a badge and a gun and if you don’t do as I say, I’m going to flip the restaurant around,” flashing his gun as he spoke.
After Yajaira demanded he leave the restaurant, the officer returned with more members of their gang to arrest Yajaira. Without reading her rights to her, they threw her into a black van and brought her to the precinct. Yajaira’s sister, who was also threatened with arrest, had a panic attack and had to be treated by Emergecy Medical Technicans. Community members mobilized immediately and demanded Yajaira’s release, which occurred three hours later (Civil Eats, 1/18).
Safety in fightback
Yajaira is a holder of DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Barack Obama-era program that delays deportations of undocumented immigrants who came here as children. She could’ve been easily deported as a result of this arrest.
The Mendez-Saavedra family is known for their fightback against racism. Yajaira started an advocacy group that promoted education access for undocumented immigrants. Her brother Marco has infiltrated detention centers three times, most recently with the Dream 9, a group of undocumented fighters who left the United States and re-entered to document and expose the fascist conditions of the of U.S. immigration system during the Obama administration (The Independent, 1/12/18).
Yajaira was correct when she said, “As an undocumented immigrant, we are always on our toes when it comes to immigration raids and police raids. They both create terror.” The bosses’ mass terror campaign deports immigrants daily on charges as minor as driving without a license, possession of marijuana, shoplifting, or violating probation (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 12/21/16). Liberal reforms like DACA, which only delay deportations on the condition of being passive to the system, keep workers in limbo and in a permanent state of fear.
While workers are told again and again to shut up and not resist, we in the Progressive Labor Party say, the only possibility of security is in fighting back. To take it a step further, joining a worldwide struggle against police terror, racism, and capitalism is the only real protection workers have.
Gentrification, a war on workers
Yajaira’s arrest occurs in the wake of intensifying gentrification in the Bronx. As rents rise and new real estate pops up, long-time residents face eviction. Gentrification, enabled by racism and police terror, is sown into the fabric of capitalism—a system in which the ruling class’ profits always come before the safety and well-being of workers
Gentrification depends on increased police terror against Black and Latin working-class people. The city is building a new $68 million facility for NYPD’s 40th precinct, the current location of which is just a few blocks from La Morada (ABC News, 7/10/18). In 2013, the precinct’s Deputy Inspector was caught on tape instructing cops to specifically stop and frisk “male Blacks 14 to 21” (Daily News, 3/21/13). The police are continuing a current-day War on Drugs in the area. Earlier this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered sweeps in the neighborhood targeting homeless people and people who use drugs, a move that he called off after much public criticism (Politico, 1/13). Crackdowns do not address addiction, and instead are a cover for violence against mainly Black and Latin workers. It is significant to note that all of this is happening in a “sanctuary city” under the Democratic Party.
Liberal politicians are the main danger
Liberal politicians offer no real solution to fascist violence against immigrants, and are not on the side of the working class even though they pretend to be. At the Saavedra-Mendez family’s press conference, attended by Progressive Labor Party, workers rightly expressed suspicion of the liberal establishment, calling into question the concept of the American Dream and police accountability. “American Dream, American Promise, the only promise that America gives is that you’re gonna get whipped as a Black and brown person,” said one resident.
Just as many workers cannot be won to the blatant anti-immigrant racism of the right, neither can we be pulled into liberal attempts to redeem electoral politics through multicultural patriotism. In response to Donald Trump’s overt attacks on immigrants, liberals have supported so called “sanctuary cities” to protect immigrant workers. What good is a “sanctuary city” if residents can’t pay rent and get terrorized by police daily. Folks live in fear of being snatched and separated from their loved ones. Similarly, policies like DACA and the NYS DREAM Act offer temporary and insufficient reforms, while at the same time increase workers’ buy-in to a multicultural American Dream.
Any movement that’s under the bosses’ leadership will serve those bosses’ interests. A sanctuary movement under the liberal bosses serves the longterm needs of  the U.S. ruling class.As the bosses gear up for World War III, multicultural patriotism will be used to build an army willing to fight for the U.S. empire.
The comments made at the press conference give us confidence that workers will resist these liberal narratives, and we must continue to struggle with all workers to ensure this is so.
Rather than liberal reforms, we must fight for revolutionary change. We must abolish borders and create a safer world for all of us by fighting for communism.