Newark, May 1—On May Day, the Cosecha Movement — a national organization fighting for the protection and dignity of 11 million undocumented workers — mobilized 200 families in a 1.5-mile march against ICE’s racist terror. The march was more than a protest. It was a call for immigrant workers to organize and resist fascist deportations in our communities.
Comrades from the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) provided communist solidarity, hammering home the necessity of antiracist, multiracial unity.
We encouraged an analysis of how the assault on immigrants flows directly from the needs of capitalism and imperialist war. We immersed ourselves with many others in preparing and leading chants. We opened our homes for banner-making, secured donations for a communal meal at the end of the march, and shared our megaphones to amplify the voices of our working class immigrant sisters and brothers.
Only the lifelong deep bonding of communists with workers trying to organize workers to create fightback will create genuine political struggle. This is the only way to win millions to understand why smashing capitalism is necessary,and why the fight for workers’ power everywhere - communism - is the only solution.
The masses fire up the masses
The march rang with the testimonies of women and children who endure the sharp edge of U.S. state terror. Their words serve as a manual for class war against capitalism:
A young boy whose father was kidnapped by ICE asked: “Why are there so many cops here? They are not on our side. Most side with ICE.”
A cleaning worker and mother thundered: “We believe in the power of the masses—the collective power that smashes walls and tears down racist chains of exploitation. This system divides us because it knows that united, we are powerful. We transform our fear into fightback, empathy, and mass strength. Let borders crumble and the oppressive capitalist system fall!”
A wife of a worker snatched by ICE in Avenel, NJ shared the trauma of state-sponsored kidnapping: “My husband was freed through organizing, but many of his coworkers were deported for the ‘crime’ of surviving. I saw children left alone, crying at night because ICE stole their parents. Chinga la migra!”
A mother of five and Cosecha volunteer exposed the electoral lie: “Politicians promise everything to get elected, but then favor only themselves. We cannot depend on them. These institutions exist to enrich the bosses through our kidnapped labor. We demand the abolition of ICE.”
A mother and factory worker living for 29 years in the U.S. reminded the crowd of the global nature of the struggle: “The oppression in our birth countries is the same oppression we find here in the U.S. I am a worker, and I am dignified. The fight of the workers has no racist borders.”
Embracing militancy and class consciousness
This year, workers embraced more militant chants that linked the police to ICE as “the same piece of garbage,” asserted that “the fight of the workers has no racist borders,” and condemned the system for calling workers illegal when “your laws are illegal.” Passersby responded with joy—honking, waving, and recording the defiance. Over 50 marchers and onlookers took copies of the revolutionary communist newspaper, CHALLENGE.
PLP comrades delivered a bilingual address, clarifying the limitations of “papers” within a dying system marching us to war. We warned that while citizenship provides immediate relief, the profit system constantly rolls back the rights of those with citizenship. We pointed to the experience of Black workers in the U.S., whose citizenship has never shielded them from anti-Black racism or poverty. As long as capitalism persists, workers—with or without papers—are condemned to cages and violence.
We invoked the legacy of Harriet Tubman: a Black working-class woman who didn’t stop at seeking “freedom papers” but conspired to destroy the entire system of exploitation. She built multiracial unity with fighters like John Brown to wage war on the ruling class. We urged the crowd to follow her lead: build class solidarity across every border and fight for the only step that matters—the abolition of capitalism.
Building a bright red future
While many workers responded enthusiastically to the call for multiracial unity, we also identified a need for deeper collective work. We noticed a difference between how workers who heard the speech in English responded more enthusiastically versus workers who heard it in Spanish.
Some immigrant workers still feel disconnected from the struggles of Black workers due to persistent anti-working-class ideas pushed by the bosses. Many immigrants coming around Cosecha feel disconnected from multiracial unity and from linking their struggle more strongly to that of Black workers in particular.
However, the tide is turning. Black, Latin, and white workers approached us to affirm the need to link these struggles and challenge capitalism as a whole. An immigrant friend from Cosecha who used to receive CHALLENGE in the mail even asked if he could provide his new address to receive it again. Most inspiringly, a young worker approached us long after the speeches ended, asking a vital question: “How can I get involved with the PLP?”
We leave this May Day more committed than ever. We do not just march.We organize for the day the working class realizes its own power and sweeps the bosses, their borders, and their terror into the dustbin of history.
