Broadview, IL, December 6, 2025—On this frigid morning 80 health care workers and friends turned up the heat of class struggle outside an Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in this Chicago suburb. Doctors and nurses chanted and gave speeches blasting the deplorable conditions in what ICE claims to be a short stay “processing center,” but which has held detained workers for days to weeks without beds, proper toilets, adequate food or access to medical care. The protest was sponsored by the local chapter of Health Care Workers for Palestine.
Racism is the main weapon the bosses have at their disposal to attack and divide the international working class, from Latin America to the Middle East to South Asia. The workers at the protest today rightfully understood that the attacks on migrating workers and refugees are fundamentally an assault on all workers.
Our ability to not only defend ourselves from racist terror but to start building a world of genuine social equality is connected to our efforts to create militant multiracial working-class struggles against capitalism. The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) fights to build the mass movement for revolution, the only force that can abolish the profit system’s detention centers, national borders, deportations and racism for all time!
From Broadview to Gaza, capitalism at the root of attacks
This site in Broadview has been a local epicenter of multiracial resistance to the racist attacks by current U.S. State-Terrorist in Chief Donald Trump and his goons. In recent months, there have been nearly daily actions in which workers have boldly faced off with the kkkops protecting the fascist concentration camp. Antiracist fighters have frequently been gassed and shot with pepper bullets, while being arrested by the dozens (see CHALLENGE, 10/29/25).
On this day, sheriff’s deputies were again out in force, trying to intimidate. Despite this, the rally participants had a strong feeling of solidarity, especially when we chanted “shut it down!” Several speakers stressed the role of health care workers in contributing to the safety of immigrant workers. A doctor speaking for PLP provoked the crowd to make systemic connections that surprisingly hadn’t yet been made at the rally. He linked the attacks on immigrants here—driven by the needs of U.S. imperialism—to the horrendous conditions for workers in Palestine inflicted by Zionist fascists during the ongoing genocide. The crowd cheered in response.
Copies of CHALLENGE were distributed, including the issue showing the struggle within the American Public Health Association opposing the genocide in Gaza (CHALLENGE, 11/26/25).The PLP speaker pointed out that the racist violence hitting immigrant workers here and workers across occupied Palestine points to the growth of fascism on a world scale. The capitalist-controlled media works overtime to slander these groups of workers to try to justify the violence heaped on them by the state. But at the same time, millions of workers, including healthcare workers, are not buying into the bosses’ lies. We are standing up and fighting back!
Say no to bosses and politicians, say yes to communism
Although no politicians spoke, and no one suggested that they do, liberal and “progressive” politicians like Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire, poses as the alternative to Trump’s current use of the ICE gestapo. But Pritzker has also deployed the state police under his control to “serve and protect” the Broadview facility, freeing up ICE agents to fan out over the region kidnapping Latin workers off the streets. And no politician functioning under this capitalist system is ever going to try to seriously abolish deportations or borders, because their billionaire masters are dependent on super-exploiting immigrant workers for max profits.
The struggle for international communist revolution remains the only way to destroy fascism while uprooting its capitalist source. A communist world means an egalitarian society where all workers cooperate for the collective good and where racist oppression and exploitation are abolished. Make PLP your weapon for crushing the bosses and achieving the future that workers and youth deserve.
