I condemn the deployment of ICE agents in Detroit and surrounding communities and call on workers to prepare collective action to defend our immigrant brothers and demand the removal of ICE from Detroit and every city.
After the mass kidnappings of immigrant workers and children in Minneapolis and the murders of Renée Good and ICU nurse and union brother Alex Pretti, Trump is expanding the use of paramilitary forces nationwide. This assault is aimed not only at immigrants but at the entire working class. To defend their wealth and power, the corporate and financial oligarchy is determined to destroy our jobs, public schools and social programs and launch new wars—and it knows this requires suppressing what it calls the “enemy within,” the working class.
UAW President Shawn Fain recently said, “Fascism is back on our doorstep,” and warned that workers are “fooling themselves” if they think what happened to Pretti “could not happen on a UAW picket line.” But beyond voting for Democrats in the midterms—who are functioning as Trump’s enablers—Fain proposes no action.
The real way to fight dictatorship was shown by autoworkers in Detroit, Flint, Toledo and other cities in the 1930s. They used their collective strength against Hitler-admirer Henry Ford, anti-immigrant demagogues like Father Coughlin, and the Black Legion and other fascist gangs used by GM. Led by socialist militants, they united workers of all races and nationalities in struggle against the corporations and both big business parties.
Today, such a fight requires breaking the grip of the UAW bureaucracy, which backs Trump’s chauvinist campaign against our brothers in Mexico, Canada and beyond. Workers must build rank-and-file committees in every factory, workplace, school and neighborhood to link the defense of jobs and living standards with the defense of democratic rights. That means taking up the call from Minneapolis for a general strike to end Trump’s reign of terror, remove ICE from every city, and hold accountable those responsible for violating our constitutional rights.
