Thousands of furious workers are protesting the detention and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and green card holder, who began life as a Palestinian refugee in Syria and led demonstrations at Columbia against the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Khalil committed no crime but is being called a security threat and terrorist supporter, terms that have been used to violently silence workers throughout the U.S.’ genocidal, blood-soaked history. As U.S. imperialism weakens against rival Russian and Chinese imperialism and world war looms on the horizon, the Trump regime threatens this will be the first of many deportations to come. 

The deportation apparatus Trump is using today to target Khalil and hunt additional antiracist students was built by liberal presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden, but this isn’t new for the U.S. capitalist class; the U.S. has been forcefully removing workers since its inception. The bosses use racist mass removals and deportations as tools to increase profits, lower wages, build racism and nationalism, and dampen working class opposition (Multiracialunity.org, 5/7/16). 

Below, we will discuss the history of U.S. deportations, current events at Columbia, the limitations of a nationalist outlook, and why joining the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party and overthrowing capitalism is the only solution. 

Racism and deportations – established U.S. practices

Since 1882, the U.S. has forced the removal of nearly 57 million people, more than any other country in the world. The vast majority were “voluntary” departures, meaning ordered by federal authorities. In the last 100 years, more people have been expelled than have been allowed to stay in the US permanently.

As the U.S.’ genocidal “manifest destiny” and decades of mass exterminations during the “Indian Wars” were winding down, the U.S. capitalists were consolidating their stranglehold over the continental U.S. — and the modern deportation mechanism got rolling, with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. By 1870, twenty percent of California’s workforce was from China, but they were no longer needed as the native-born population grew. The Act not only restricted immigration but denied citizenship or the right to marry a non-Chinese, even to longtime residents.

Over 22,000 immigrants had their citizenship revoked from 1906-1967, most often on a political basis. Terrified by the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, U.S. leaders targeted left-wing leaders. Perhaps the most famous case is that of anarchist Emma Goldman, and nearly 250 leftists were deported to then-communist-led Soviet Union that same year.

Thousands were deported under the Nationality Act of 1940, and in 1952 during McCarthyism, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, that required citizenship applicants to prove their Constitutional loyalty.  One of the best-known victims, the Trinidad-born communist Claudia Jones, was expelled in 1955. 

Despite undocumented immigrants being vital to the agriculture, construction, and home health industries, Trump is building racism and nationalism by resurrecting the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allowed a President to remove non-citizens during a “declared war,” including those who are long-term residents, without any hearing or due process. The Supreme Court has said in the past that the Act can be used only during an “invasion or predatory incursion,” but that’s exactly what Trump calls immigrants – an invasion – especially those who cross the southern border.

Mahmoud Khalil and anti-imperialism

Whether a student expresses verbal sympathy for Hamas or not is currently not a legal basis for arrest, academic sanctions or deportation. Khalil, however, actually said in a CNN interview, “I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other.” Although we do not know Khalil personally and do not know if by this he means he supports a single binational state with equal rights or if he thinks an Islamic state under Hamas is desirable for Palestinians, he at least does not believe that a state of continual occupation and war benefits either Israelis or Palestinians.

PLP fights beyond the positions of the groups leading the Columbia and nationwide student protests for a mass party for communism – the only force that threatens imperialism and genocide. Most of these groups are committed to the “right of self-determination,” which is a common position of most groups on the “left” today, but lacks a class analysis of capitalism. “Self-determination” or “nationalism of the oppressed” essentially argues U.S. capitalists are bad, but capitalists in Palestine, Sudan, Haiti or China are okay, with no distinction between workers and bosses.

Capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the working class by a small group of owners, and both imperialist nations and colonized nations are so divided. Even within the “imperialist core” nations, the vast majority of the population is exploited and repressed. Columbia students know this, as does anyone who protested for George Floyd or with the coal or with the coal miners in Alabama. Workers in imperialist nations have far more in common with workers of colonized or formerly colonized ones in the so-called Global South. PLP endorses Marx’s revolutionary slogan, “workers of the world, unite!”

The second fallacy, however, is that these same class divisions do not exist within colonized or oppressed nations, like Palestine, Sudan or Haiti. For example, the pro-Palestine movement outside of the occupied territories expresses unmitigated support of Hamas, mostly on the basis that they are the leaders of an oppressed society and thus cannot be criticized. 

However, the institutions and representatives of the imperialists are always deeply implanted in these nations’ political and financial institutions, whether before or after battles for liberation. In every state where national liberation struggles have been victorious, from South Africa to Algeria to El Salvador and many, many more, conditions are as bad or worse, despite having ruling classes of the same ethnicity as them. The local economic structure remains tied to international imperialist institutions like the IMF – or increasingly to China — and the economies remain limited to resource extraction.

In Palestine, Fatah, the openly corrupt ruling party of the West Bank, is in league with Israeli rulers and their rabid police. Hamas, the Islamic group that rules in Gaza, has accepted millions of dollars from Israel both at its entry into Gaza in 1987 and in recent years, so Israel could promote Palestinian divisions. Hamas ruled Gaza by taxing the general population at exorbitant rates and suppressing its opposition. Many leaders lived in wealth in Qatar, while most of the population is food insecure. And although many Gazans may admire the courage of Hamas fighters, there is a widespread dislike of the consequences.

The communist movement we deserve

It’s misleading to declare that all rulers who oppose the U.S. have the interests of any workers at heart, even their own. All workers in imperialist and oppressed nations are victimized by capitalism and, we must unite as class sisters and brothers to overthrow it. As the U.S. loses ground to China in productivity and influence in much of the world and as inter-imperialist war grows closer, fascist repression will be needed no matter which politicians are in power. Join PLP, and fight to link these struggles together into a mass anti-imperialist movement for communist revolution!

The struggles of immigrants in the United Kingdom are deeply connected to the broader contradictions of capitalism—oppression, inequality, and racist super-exploitation. The Progressive Labor Party asserts that these issues are not random misfortunes but rather immigration policies and borders are designed to serve the interests of the increasingly fascist national imperialist ruling classes from the U.S. to Europe, and their junior partners in the ruling classes around the world. Capitalism thrives on cheap labor, divisions within the working class, and the scapegoating of immigrants to divert attention from their own failures and control labor and resources.

Economic exploitation and class struggle

Capitalism consistently drives immigrants into exploitative economic conditions. Highly skilled and educated individuals are often relegated to insecure, low-paying jobs. Employers take advantage of their vulnerable status by subjecting them to poor working conditions and minimal job security. Zero-hours contracts, wage theft, and hazardous workplaces disproportionately affect migrant workers, perpetuating a system that prioritizes profit over people.

The  Progressive  Labor Party fights for an end to anti-worker migration policies, stronger labor protections, unionization, and the eradication of exploitative work conditions. The struggle of immigrants is inherently a class struggle—both migrant and native-born workers must unite against their shared enemy: capitalist exploitation. However our long term goal is to smash all borders and fight for a communist world run by and for the international working class.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric and divide-and-rule tactics

Capitalists fuel anti-immigrant sentiment to divide the working class. By blaming immigrants for low wages, housing shortages, and strained public services, they shift attention away from the real culprits—corporate greed, privatization, and austerity policies. The ruling class benefits from pitting workers against one another instead of against the exploitative system that oppresses them all.

The Progressive Labor Party actively opposes such scapegoating and champions international worker solidarity. The challenges facing the working class in Britain can not be solved by closing borders or deporting immigrants, but rather by smashing the capitalist system that creates inequality in the first place.

Border controls and the immigration system

The UK’s immigration system is designed to serve capitalist interests, selectively admitting workers when needed while criminalizing and deporting others. Policies like the "hostile environment" push migrants into precarious situations, exposing them to deportation threats and restricting their access to essential services such as healthcare and education.

We argue that borders function as tools of the ruling class to control labor and enforce alienation. The Progressive Labor Party demands the abolition of exploitative capitalism and its racist immigration laws and fights for a world where all workers, regardless of origin, should have full rights, including citizenship. This can only be achieved in a communist world where all workers from around the world are in power.

Housing and social services

Immigrants face widespread discrimination in housing, overcrowding, and homelessness. The lack of affordable housing is not a result of immigration but a consequence of a capitalist system that prioritizes profit over people’s needs. Real estate speculation, the privatization of public housing, and government austerity measures have fueled a housing crisis that affects both immigrants and native citizens alike.

Communists call for state investment in social housing, rent controls, while also fighting for an end to landlord exploitation. The struggle for fair housing is an essential part of the broader fight against capitalist oppression. Under communism housing will not be rented or sold for profit. There will be free, safe, and good housing for all.

Racism and state repression

Racism serves as a tool of capitalist repression, reinforcing economic exploitation and social exclusion. Police brutality, surveillance, and discriminatory immigration enforcement are used to intimidate and oppress immigrant communities. Detention centers, deportations, and restrictions on asylum seekers are all part of the state's broader strategy to criminalize migrants.

The Progressive Labor Party fights for the destruction of racist state institutions and detention centres. Only through an international communist revolution, under the banner of the Progressive Labor Party, can systemic racism and capitalist oppression be eradicated.
Long live the international working class and the Progressive Labour Party!

Newark, NJ, April 1—Earlier this month, the ruling class and their injustice system charged a 14-year-old with murder and attempted murder of two KKKops in Newark. While the bosses’ media frames this killing of a racist stormtrooper in blue as a tragedy, juxtaposing it with questions as to how “someone so young” could do it (NJ.com, 3/25), the true tragedy remains the countless Black and Latin workers victimized by racist police terror in Newark and beyond. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades have been active here in antiracist struggles against police brutality for years, specifically helping the Rodwell/Spivey family in their successful battle against a racist attack by the Newark Police Department (NPD) in 2021. But no wins in capitalist courts will ever erase the fact that reforms won’t liberate workers from kkkop terror. Only a PLP led communist revolution will do that!

Baraka says “It’s not a police problem”

Predictably, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka tried to All Lives Mattersplain the shooting: "We just have to do a better job, I have to do a better job, our families have to do a better job, the community has to do a better job at making sure that our children are not handling guns in the street, shooting at police officers. This is not a police problem. This is our problem, is our collective problem."

Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Lakeesha Eure–a former anti-police brutality activist!—echoed the official police narrative, claiming sympathy for the arrested child, but not daring to question the officers’ narrative. The liberal fascist politicians’ parroting of the police narrative, just as they did in the Rodwell Spivey case, is sickening. However, it should come as no surprise; Liberal politicians will always reveal their true colors as big fascist stooges(see glossary on page 6).”

Newark—Owned by the Big Fascists

This is happening in a city terrorized by racist police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for decades. This is happening in a city with some of the most corrupt, racist cops, courts and prisons in AmeriKKKa. This is happening in a city whose politicians – aligned with the Big Fascist, gentrifying finance capital firms like Goldman Sachs – portray as progressive with “cops who care.”  Remember, the chief of police took a knee during the George Floyd protests! (NJ.com, 6/1/20) The following year, Newark PD and the SWAT teams attacked the Rodwell Spivey family in their own home, arresting four of the brothers and imprisoning Justin Rodwell in the vile Essex County Correctional concentration camp for 18 months without a trial. Just as workers across the country fought alongside the Rodwell Spivey family to free Justin, we should fight to prevent a modern day legal lynching of this 14-year-old child of Newark.

The killing of Newark Detective Joseph Azcona was used as a pretext to terrorize a North Newark neighborhood for the funeral held on Friday, March 14th. Residents were told with less than 24 hours notice that the streets would be blocked from Thursday to Friday afternoon.  Police set up porta potties on Mount Prospect Avenue for two blocks. Thousands of police from across the tri-state area invaded a 10-block radius in the 7th Avenue neighborhood. Residents were essentially a in our homes for eight hours until the police mob cleared around 3 pm. Families had to keep their children home from school because the funeral took place right next to Barringer High School.

While the South Ward is typically the epicenter of racist police terror, the North Ward is no stranger to it either. During COVID, Essex County sheriffs routinely detained, harassed and arrested Black and Latin youth in the areas of Branch Brook Park. Ten years ago, a youth was shot in the vicinity of 6th Avenue by police. NPD routinely terrorizes the residents of the Stephen Crane and Mount Prospect public housing complexes with harassment and raids. Politicians, in cahoots with finance capital and real estate developers, often direct police to crack down on neighborhoods deemed ripe for gentrification. The site of the shooting is a couple blocks from a planned new commercial development (Tapinto Newark, 3/19).

Sanctuary City? What a joke!

While Newark politicians claim to be a sanctuary city, we have all seen the ICE raids for decades, from Ironbound to Ivy Hill.  These raids are being ramped up now with President Donald Trump, but Joe Biden and Barack Obama both deported more workers than Trump–so far. One of the first ICE raids under Trump happened in January at a Newark fish market, where agents harassed and detained undocumented and documented workers, including a Puerto Rican military veteran (njspotlightnews, 1/24).  Newark ICE arrested a second student involved with the Columbia University Palestine protests and disappeared her into the deportation system (NBC New York, 3/14).  Her whereabouts are unknown at the time of this writing.

The Department of Homeland Security is contracting with GeoGroup, a multi-billion dollar private prison company to turn Delaney Hall in Newark into another ICE detention facility, after the community rallied to shut it down in 2022. Baraka, who is running for New Jersey governor, gave a nice speech about how un-democratic ICE is behaving–what a shocker!  Like other Big Fascists of the Democratic Party, he says pretty words while behind the scenes making deals and controlling any opposition so ICE is tactically permitted to do whatever they please in Newark.

The Essex County Correctional Facility, next door to Delaney Hall, is one of the most notorious prisons in the country, where one of the Rodwell Spivey brothers, was held unjustly for 18 months without a trial after NPD and the Essex County Prosecutor's Office terrorized their family (Ark Republic, 2/22/22). From 2022-24, there were at least six deaths at the Essex County Correctional Facility and Jayshawn Boyd was put into a coma as a result of the deplorable conditions in the facility (New York Times, 12/28/21). The conditions in the facility, which then housed ICE detainees as well, were so bad that it was investigated. Conditions have not improved; the capitalist media just stopped covering it.

In 2021, Carl Dorsey, an unarmed Black father, was killed by Newark Police officer Roy Simpkins, who had previously had complaints of racist harassment against him documented by the ACLU when the Newark PD was under investigation through a federal consent decree.  Dorsey’s family is still waiting for justice as Dorsey’s killer walked free.

Building communism is the solution

The cold hard truth is that no victim of police or ICE brutality will get justice while capitalism is alive. The capitalists control the courts, the cops, the prisons, and they created the Klan–they’re ALL the same. tools of terror. Capitalists use police to brutally quash any fight back and displace Black and Latin workers; they use prisons for modern day slave labor, raking in billions in profits. With the U.S. capitalist empire in decline and Chinese, Russian and U.S. imperialists fighting each other to control oil, gas and mineral resources in the initial stage of another world war, these are dangerous times for workers. But if we unite as an international working class to destroy capitalism, we can take control of our destinies. Join PLP, the ONLY party fighting the capitalists and uniting the international working class. There’s nothing to lose but our chains and a better world to gain.

NEW YORK, April 1—As the struggle against the New York City school's new, mandated curriculum continues, teachers are pushing back with leadership from Progressive Labor Party (PLP). A teacher who refused to teach the mandated lesson plan has been punished with a disciplinary letter in their file. 

Communists know that the purpose of education under capitalism is to prepare docile and willing workers and soldiers to serve the needs of capitalism. These prefabricated lessons are designed by corporations and teachers who push the racist, sexist ideologies the bosses need to teach. Whereas, communist teachers use the classroom to interrupt the bosses’ ideological production, interjecting communist ideas, and building PLP and for a communist revolution that will one day bury capitalism once and for all.

Teacher goals: Become ungovernable 

When the other teachers found out that the insubordination charge came from the lie that the entire department wanted to use the mandated curriculum, they fought back. They took over a professional development meeting designed to discuss the curriculum and turned it into a restorative justice circle. This left the Assistant Principal (AP) sitting in silence as the teachers aired their grievances over the disciplinary action and other attacks.

During the meeting several teachers said they see students as future workers, that this is a workers' fight, and that fascism is growing. They also pointed out that their compliance with the bosses' request does not mean they agree with discipline against teachers who are fighting back. A PL’er pointed out the curriculum’s racism and sexism. They also reinforced the class nature of the disagreement, reminding everyone that the AP is their boss and teachers are struggling to keep their jobs to survive.

Another attack on the teachers was the AP's decision to lock part of the English office. This is where there is a working window, a microwave, and a refrigerator. The teachers rightly called the AP out for individualism and selfishness in taking over a shared space for her own personal use. Despite these disagreements, the AP agreed to have teachers lead more department meetings which shows workers' ability to lead without bosses interference.

Expanding the struggle

The next day organizing continued as teachers, including PL’ers, met to plan the next stage of the fight back. There was a thorough evaluation of where all the teachers in the department stood in their support or opposition to the new curriculum and their history of struggle in the past. A critical mass of teachers was determined to be ready to act and advance the fight with the help of the Chapter Leader (CL) of the union.

While many teachers were on the side of fighting against the new curriculum, some were upset that they were being pushed into a conflict they did not agree to. They were satisfied with only having to use the curriculum for one unit a semester. One teacher even expressed dismay at the teachers' disagreement with the AP, feeling that they were ganging up on her. It is important to understand that the AP is the boss and workers need to unite and fight together to repel the bosses' attacks. In the end, everyone agreed with the majority to escalate the struggle and it led to a new teacher joining and meeting with PLP.

Despite the union leadership promising to request that the principal remove the disciplinary letter from the teacher's file, the CL and PL’er were skeptical that they would follow through. So far they have not and they seem to be selling out the teachers as they negotiate with the chancellor.

This curriculum struggle by PLP focusing on meeting student's needs and academic freedom for teachers is in opposition to the union's plans. 

The union leadership does not want to demand academic freedom or more teachers in the classroom. Instead they want teacher centers in each school to ensure that teachers will teach the new curriculum correctly. That way both the union and the chancellor will have spies to report on dissenters.

Teachers cannot rely on union hacks to fight our battles. The real victory comes from mobilizing the department and others to resist the bosses' attacks on teachers and students. Organizing collectively can help students and teachers realize their revolutionary power. The struggle continues.