Trump promises to bring back an era of American prosperity, but in the long-term, capitalism is heading deeper into crisis. The ruling class, powerless to stop this decline, is trying to shift the blame by scapegoating immigrants. The bosses use this divide-and-rule tactic to pit worker against worker on “culture war” lines, aiming to keep us busy fighting each other, while they  make a killing.

Trump’s reactionary rhetoric 

Trump has threatened the most massive deportations in American history. His campaign rallies featured racist rants, references to “alien gang members,” “criminals from the dungeons of the third world,” coming from “jails and insane asylums … to prey upon innocent American citizens.”

Most people did not vote for Trump because of his xenophobic insults, but in spite of them. An NBC exit poll found that, even though 39% of voters support “mass deportation,” 56% prefer offering immigrants a chance to apply for legal status. Mathematically, this necessarily includes a share of people who voted for Trump.

In their minds, the issue of immigration is completely tied to economic questions: wages, jobs, and living conditions. Trump’s demagogy is an attempt to divert healthy class anger over declining living standards into reactionary anti-immigrant sentiment.

Will cracking down on immigration help the economy?

Trump claims he’ll mobilize the National Guard to deport roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants from the US. Leaving aside the multibillion-dollar cost to already deeply-indebted state coffers—Bloomberg estimated that it would cost over $300 billion—such an operation would only exacerbate the economic and inflationary crisis. The agricultural sector alone employs two million immigrant farm workers, many with no legal status. If these workers were deported, produce prices would skyrocket as entire harvests withered in the fields.

There would also almost certainly be a fightback, not only from immigrants, but from the wider working class, as they witness their friends, families, and neighbors taken away by armed agents of the state—some of whom may not carry out their jobs with total enthusiasm.

These factors make mass deportation on the scale Trump has promised unlikely. In his victory speech, he toned down his rhetoric, saying, “We’re gonna have to seal up those borders, and we’re gonna have to let people come into our country … but they have to come in legally.”

However, with someone as unpredictable as Donald Trump, you just never know.

Do immigrants bring crime?

Trump advances absurd conspiracy theories to paint immigrants as violent gang-rapists and AR15-toting pet eaters. Never mind that statistics show immigrants are less likely to commit crime than native-born citizens. If anything, research suggests that increases in immigration correlate with declining homicide rates, property crimes, and robberies. These stubborn facts have not stopped the capitalist media from demonizing Latin American immigrants as “criminals taking over entire cities.”

To be sure, organized crime takes advantage of migrants. Coyotes linked to narcotraffickers make a killing off dangerous border crossings, and cartel violence displaces hundreds of thousands of people every year.

What Trump and the ruling class won’t tell you is that many of these cartels originated as American-funded and trained reactionary militias to crush student, worker, and peasant movements during the “dirty wars” of the 1960s–80s. The first Los Zetas commanders were trained at the CIA’s “School of the Americas.” The US continues to fund and arm reactionary governments and state officials, who don’t hesitate to use cartels to disappear and massacre activists.

American imperialism is the most reactionary force on this planet. The American ruling class has the blood of millions on its hands. They are the true criminals, responsible for creating and maintaining the barbaric violence that forces millions to flee.

Do the Democrats offer any better?

Despite the rhetorical differences between Trump and Harris, both parties’ policy on immigration is fundamentally the same—because both represent capitalist interests.

Harris worked hard to outflank Trump as the real “tough on immigration” candidate. She touted Democratic efforts to pass a “border security” bill to restrict immigration, chiding congressional Republicans for voting it down.

Biden signed an executive order in June to “bar migrants who cross the southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum.” In 2022, Harris went to Guatemala, directly addressing the people of Latin America, saying: “Do not come! If you come, you will be turned away.”

Biden is on track to deport as many immigrants as Trump did in his first term. Obama deported more immigrants per year than Trump did during his first term. This is the real record of the Democratic Party, which has consistently assaulted immigrant rights.

Will “closing the border” solve anything?

There are around 50 million immigrants in America; 11 million are undocumented. The share of immigrants in the US population has shot up to early-20th century levels, when millions fled the devastation of World War I. Why? Immigrants are fleeing for their lives. US imperialism has plundered Latin America for decades, funding reactionary militias and governments. This is further aggravated by the dramatic increase in climate disasters.

At home, capitalists rely on immigrants for cheap labor, while scapegoating them to divide our class. In turn, the constant threat of deportation makes immigrants ripe for hyper-exploitation.

In his shameful address to the RNC, Bobby Bartels of Steamfitters Local 638 UA said, “We have an open border inviting illegal immigrants to take our American jobs and lower our wages.” This is exactly what the bosses’ want us to think!

We shouldn’t fall for the bosses’ lies. It’s the capitalist system that produces artificial scarcity, inflation, and extreme inequality—not immigrant workers. There are enough resources to provide a good quality of life for all, regardless of nationality, but only if we take the wealth hoarded by the parasitic billionaires and put it to good use.

Communists take an internationalist, class-independent approach. Immigrants are our class brothers and sisters who have been forced to flee their countries by our bloodthirsty ruling class. The labor movement should launch a campaign to organize the unorganized, regardless of immigration status, into militant unions fighting for higher wages and better working conditions for all.

This won’t happen overnight, and this is why we need a revolutionary, class-independent party that the working class can use as a tool against the bosses and their goons in DC. Such a party would not only be able to cut through the reactionary and inflammatory rhetoric of the politicians, but also lead workers to overthrow the system that causes such wretched and despicable conditions both at home and abroad.

An injury to one is an injury to all!

Down with imperialist meddling around the world!

Down with bipartisan attacks on immigrants!

Organize the unorganized!