Immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, are facing summary deportation and imprisonment without judicial recourse. The Communist Party USA condemns these attacks in the strongest possible terms and stands with all people resisting the Trump injustices — especially with immigrant workers, students, and their communities, which are the focus of the attacks today. We call on everyone to engage in a determined struggle to bring Trump’s racist terror campaign to an abrupt end.

Trump and MAGA’s lawless campaign against immigrant communities and student activists represents something new and extremely dangerous in the life of this country. It is the opening salvo of the administration’s wider goal: to do away entirely with due process, rule of law, and all democratic rights won through struggle, including the constitutional rights and freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. Unless rebuffed by a powerful, working-class-led mass movement, it will be followed by wider attacks on union organizers, civil rights leaders, peace and environmental activists, and all those involved in struggles for inclusive democracy, equality, and economic security for working people — citizens and non-citizens alike.

Trump, MAGA, and their fascistic billionaire backers imagine that by trampling on the rights of those with the least legal protections, they will be able to begin the process of eliminating the legal rights of all. This highlights the danger that racism and national chauvinism have always represented throughout the history of this country.

The administration is attempting to hide the lawless nature of its attacks with an appeal to an irrelevant 18th Century law. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was part of the Alien and Sedition Acts passed during the presidency of John Adams, which gives the president power to detain non-citizens during times of war, invasion, or predatory incursion. Trump’s appeal to this law is a ruse: while the U.S. is engaged in various aggressive actions against other countries around the world, Congress has not declared war on any country of the Americas or anywhere else, nor is the U.S. undergoing an invasion.

When Tom Homan declared, “I don’t care what the judges think,” and when Trump said he would like to be able to send U.S. citizens to the concentration camp in El Salvador, they made clear with their own words the contempt this administration has for people’s democratic rights and the U.S. Constitution.

The sending of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, allegedly by mistake, and the refusal of the administration refusal to correct its “error” on the grounds that this would violate Salvadoran sovereignty further demonstrates the administration’s criminality — to say nothing of its hypocrisy, given how the U.S. has treated the national sovereignty of so many countries in the past.

The rounding up of Rumeysa Ozturk by plainclothes masked officers — in a word, by secret police — on the streets of Somerville, Mass. for exercising her right to free speech further demonstrates this criminality. So does the case of Khalil Mahmoud, a green card holder abducted from his apartment building in New York, held in detention and now ordered deported.

Together with the targeting of immigrant farmworker and organizer Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, these cases also highlight the administration’s intent to initiate wider repression against all those engaged in workplace, community, and campus struggles for workers’ rights, civil rights, equality, and peace.

Further, the Trump administration has ICE accessing tax documents of undocumented immigrants who filed with a special Tax ID number (ITIN) provided to them by the government itself. Will the DACA community be next? DHS is already threatening people to self-deport. On April 11, thousands of people, many still in immigration court processes, got an email or text telling them to report themselves and leave the country, using the fear of detention and fines.

We have heard the idea expressed by Marco Rubio that the government can arrest and deport people because their ideas are “aligned” with those of a terrorist organization, e.g. Hamas. Who is next? “Aligned” can mean anything the government claims it means, such as expressing favorable opinions about a country that the U.S. has defined as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” or for espousing socialist or communist ideas. Given MAGA’s history of defining even the likes of Biden and Harris as socialists and Marxists, this is a net wide enough to disappear anyone involved in actions of resistance. Meanwhile, we hear Rubio’s accusation that certain people can be deported if their presence here is an obstruction to the goals of U.S. foreign policy.

These many examples show the urgency of the situation in the U.S. What can we do? Ten national unions have issued a joint statement demanding the release of immigrant workers snatched by ICE. This is a development which must be supported and which we can build on.

Here are some action steps for CPUSA Districts and clubs:

• Unite with labor, socially conscious religious congregations, and NGOs. Have a ‘Here is what every club should do’ list.
• Become aware of what’s going on in your area.
• Find out what immigrant rights organizations and coalitions are doing in your area and what you can do to help.
• Make a list of pro bono lawyers in your area and meet with them.
• Liaise with NLG’s National Immigration Project, ACLU, Quakers / AFSC, and AILA.
• Bolster sanctuary city work.
• Encourage clubs to work on breaking 287(g) agreements, which allow the Department of Homeland Security to enter into agreements with local law enforcement, deputizing police to act as ICE agents.
• May Day events: encourage organizing and participation.

Image: Press conference with Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia by Ya-Marie Sesay (X) / Kilmar Abrego Garcia with his young child, CAIR National on X