Statement by Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidate Gloria La Riva. To learn more, visit her campaign website.
As the proud daughter of a Mexican immigrant, I denounce today’s US Supreme Court ruling upholding the lawsuit of 26 states that opposed the DAPA and DACA programs. These programs deferred the deportations of many undocumented people, and allowed them to continue working, to attend school and to live without fear.
I stand in solidarity with the undocumented immigrants who are now once again threatened by deportation, separation of family and terror.
My mother Julia worked in jobs that so many immigrant women do, as a seamstress in sweatshops, cleaning hotel rooms and homes, cooking and waiting tables in restaurants, making very little in every job.
She is very proud of being Mexican. She has incomparable dignity, unlike racist bigots like Trump or shameless opportunists like Clinton.
I think Trump should be tried for crimes against humanity for threatening Mexicans and Muslims. After conviction his proper sentence would be to work in the fields harvesting asparagus and picking strawberries in the California fields. That goes for all those politicians who dare abuse the rights of immigrants. Like Clinton, who supported the deportation of unaccompanied minors.
The right-wing narrative that undocumented immigrants are breaking the law and need to be deported, is a complete and racist denial of reality.
There is no legalization process for the roughly 11 million people who live and work in the United States, who have been unwilling targets of racist demonization for years, just for wanting to provide for themselves and their families. Given the opportunity, millions of people who came to the U.S. for reasons of survival, would immediately apply for legalization.
Anti-immigrant hysteria is fostered by politicians like the ultra-bigot Trump and others, to divide and scapegoat the working class, so the rich can maintain their profits and power.
The capitalist ruling class scapegoats undocumented workers, but the truth is, it depends enormously on their labor and social contributions.
California’s giant billion-dollar agribusiness would collapse in a day without the tens of thousands of farmworkers who work under grueling conditions in the fields, in the packinghouses and canneries.
From California to New York state, the wine industry has ballooned. Without immigrant farmworkers it too would collapse.
In every industry, in every city and town, immigrants of dozens of countries are an integral part of the working class.
My campaign for President demands full equality and rights for all immigrants. We demand an immediate halt to all deportations. We reject the concept of foreigner as a means to divide the working class.
It is the capitalists who steal jobs when they shut down plants and move abroad for higher profits. It is the bosses who lay off workers to protect their profits.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision denying DACA and DAPA is not the end, it is definitely a major blow. But it must make us more resolved to demand FULL rights for all immigrants now.
When the powers-that-be so viciously and shamelessly deny rights to the very workers who create their wealth, then you know those capitalists and their servile politicians need to be expropriated and the workers take power. We need a society that values every human, from babies to seniors, that extols the labor of all and provides for everyone, while protecting the earth and environment.
In the meantime, we have all the power in our hands, to build a resistance against family separation and deportations, to win full rights for all.
