HAITI, October 3–The caravans of immigrants heading to the United States making news are the result of the failure of capitalism and imperialism. This is not only true of migration to the U.S.; workers the world over leave their homes in search of safety from war, famine, climate disasters and violence, and for a decent life for themselves and their families. The Haiti refugee crisis yet again exposes capitalism’s inability to meet workers’ needs.
Racist rhetoric
For many decades now, migrants from the Caribbean and Central America have moved towards the U.S. and other countries in the western hemisphere. As soon as migrant workers are on the move, the bosses and their media begin demonizing them. Migrants are labeled “parasites, lazy, job stealers and disease carriers” as if they wouldn’t rather stay in their homes to build their lives.
Today, most migrants arriving on the U.S. southern border are from Central and Latin America, but many are also from Haiti. Tens of thousands are making the trek across Latin America seeking safety.
The pictures coming from the U.S. border (See editorial on page 2). are a warning to migrants of the fascist terror that awaits them: border agents on horseback riding down and whipping migrants from Haiti like the old slave catchers in Saint Domingue (what the French slavers called Haiti). More warnings to worker migrating from Central America come from photos of refugee workers and their families being kept in concentration camps
How it started
Historically, the European ruling classes sent their representatives around the world freely—to invade and set up colonies and slavery as economic models. In the so-called New World, the colonizers attacked the indigenous population with murder, rape, and disease. They stole land and wealth and forced some into slavery.
Later, the colonialists brought Black workers from Africa to be enslaved. Each group of oppressed workers in turn resisted. As time passed and the economy matured, the bosses needed to come up with a new form of slavery to take advantage of industrialization. Wage slavery was born. Today all countries are capitalist.
How it’s continuing
The impact of imperialism has been intense: racism and sexism, devastating effects of “natural” disasters, joblessness, political instability, and failing infrastructure. For almost two centuries, the countries of Latin America have been under U.S. imperialist domination. The 1823 Monroe Doctrine forbade any other power from intervening in this hemisphere.
In Haiti, this has meant the U.S. has been free to invade in 1915, 1994 and 2004 putting puppets in office and fomenting coups when their interests were in danger. This policy has been applied throughout Latin America.
Migrant workers did not create the conditions that forced them to move—capitalism did. However, nothing stays the same, change is inevitable, but how things change depends on us. What we do counts: fighting anti-immigrant racism with expressions of solidarity at any border, organizing on the job, in the military, and in our neighborhoods. But we must use these fights to build and recruit to the international communist Progressive Labor Party.
 We will abolish wage slavery
There will come a time when slavery—chattel or wage—will no longer be tolerated; and like the masses in Haiti (the first enslaved people to successfully overthrow slavery), revolutionaries will lead the way for all humanity for an egalitarian society called communism.
Then workers across the world will be armed to fight the capitalist system and its lackeys— politicians, media, gangs, and bosses. We stand shoulder to shoulder with migrants around the world—workers of the world, unite, we have nothing to lose but our chains!