ICE on the rampage. Unions missing in action

ICE’s Murder of Renee Good and its non-fatal shooting of another protester did not quell the movement. Just the opposite. As ICE saturated the air with tear gas in at least one neighborhood, one must wonder what the residents inside their homes were suffering. The tear gas must have leaked in, and they were trapped inside.

This is the situation created in Minneapolis by the band of several thousand ICE fascists. We do not use that term lightly. What are the 1500 violent fascist organizers whom Trump pardoned doing? Where did they go? It is virtually certain that they and like minded individuals have joined ICE’s massive recruiting campaign. This campaign has been made possible by the Big Beautiful Bill’s authorization for $170 billion of additional spending over the next four years for ICE and Customs Border Patrol. They have intentionally turned a blind eye to the background of their new recruits. As this article shows, they do no background check. That is not just sloppiness or carelessness; it is intentional in order to enable the recruitment of thousands of violent racists and ethno nationalists.

From the PBS video. “Have our home again” means a “home” for white Christians only.

This is connected with the recent releases from different wings of the Trump administration – some of whose images come directly from the fascist Proud Boys, who were instrumental in the January 6 coup attempt. Readers should take time to watch this PBS program which shows what the Trump/Vance/Miller administration is putting out now.

Venezuela and beyond
ICE’s invasion of Minneapolis follows the administration’s special military operation in Venezuela, and they stem from the same source, the same poiint of view. That viewpoint was clearly expressed by fascist Stephen Miller, who told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “you can you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in the real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

It will be followed by other invasions and special military operations – Greenland? Iran? Cuba? – New York City? Oakland? Who knows what is next?

Media
The mass media is somewhat publicizing the violence of these fascist thugs, but they are talking out of both sides of their mouths. CNN, for instance, keeps platforming various “law enforcement” analysts who talk about “tensions on both sides”. CNN also keeps on referring to ICE as law enforcement or something of the sort. No, they are not. ICE and Customs and Border Patrol have only one authority: to enforce immigration statutes, which is to say to prevent people from entering the US without proper documents and/or to deport those who are already here. Socialists do not support this role, but we have to understand that it limits their authority. They are not authorized to enforce traffic laws, or any other laws. They are purely authorized to enforce civil – not criminal – law.

Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the White House. Like “bipartisanchip” and “normal” U.S. capitalist democracy, it’s gone forever.

Democrats
Minneapolis’s mayor Frey and the state’s governor Walz have filed a lawsuit demanding ICE leave Minneapolis. The court is supposed to rule on that on Monday, January 19. If that suit is relied upon, that will leave ICE nearly an additional week to continue its rampage through the city. If the court rules favorably – which is far from certain – then the feds will appeal, which will enable ICE to further prolong its rampage.

As for the Democrats as a whole, some of their leaders are probably secretly delighted. Their one and only solution is to take back congress this November. They are living in a dream world, one in which elections this year will be just like previous years. They are deaf to the fact that Trump has said he regrets not having seized the voting machines after losing the 2020 election. This blindness stems from their desperation to return to the “good old days” when the two parties both competed and collaborated. Just as is the East Wing of the White House, those days are demolished and gone forever.

Labor Missing in Action
What cries out for an answer is where are the unions? Overall, they have been so silent that hardly anybody even notices them. Nobody even notices the fact that from the AFL-CIO on down they don’t even put anything on these attacks on their web pages. Now, a few unions are supposedly calling for a general strike on Jan. 23. Can you understand this – January 23? They are hoping that ICE will be gone by then. These are the unions: Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, CWA Local 7250, and St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28. (The Minneapolis Labor Council is notably absent.) Go look at their web sites. With two exceptions, not a single one even mentions what is happening in Minneapolis. ATU Local 1005 doesn’t have a web site available, but they do mention the call for a general strike on their facebook page – in order to disassociate the local from the call! CWA 7250 has one mention of the situation in the city, in which they relay the news that several of their members have been kidnapped by ICE. Their response is to call for donations to the families of their members. That is all.

It is this disgraceful silence of the union leadership that has enabled this situation to develop in the first place. The union leadership relies on the bosses at work to give them decent wages and conditions, and the leadership relies on the employers’ party – the party which they have joined – to solve our social problems. The leadership has enabled the creation of a tremendous vacuum in U.S. politics which MAGA has filled for the moment.

As this is being written, the news is out that far from backing down in Minneapolis, Trump is threatening to use the insurrection act. He is hoping for some sort of terrorist action, which he would use for an even worse crackdown not only in Minneapolis but nationwide. In fact, there is an extreme danger that some misguided people – or even some infiltrated by provocateurs – could take some such action. It could be encouraged by some provocateurs, or it could be just some misguided people who are extremely frustrated and don’t see how the union movement can build a mass working class resistance to MAGA, ICE, etc. The same applies to the reports of a group that fancies itself as the Black Panther Party and has announced they are going to march in Minneapolis carrying long guns. That is also a provocation and would do nothing whatsoever to actually protect the protesters. Just the opposite, in fact. Terrorist actions and what follows would tend to carry over to November and would give Trump the excuse he wants to largely limit or cancel the elections altogether.

New Movement
A new movement is starting to develop at the molecular level. In some cities, people are starting to organize community patrols to warn residents when ICE is present. It is certain that in Minneapolis something similar is happening. Neighbors are talking with neighbors. In 1985 a massive earthquake hit Mexico City. The city government did nothing to come to the aid of the people. So what happened was that in neighborhood after neighborhood people started joining together to dig their neighbors out of the rubble of their collapsed homes. Out of that a mass political movement developed. We should encourage and join this molecular development of a movement here, even if it is only neighborhood patrols who warn neighbors when ICE is present. But let us never lose sight of the enormous potential power that the unions have. Let us continue to look for the rank and file union members who want to carry this drive to resist MAGA into their unions and make the unions do what they should have been doing all along: Fight for its members and for all workers; fight oppression at work and in society. From that working class independence, including the workers’ answer to MAGA and to the Democrats, and a working class socialist movement can be built.

Further reading:
For the connection between Venezuela and Minneapolis see
Trump’s Turn for special military operation 

For more on the absence of the labor movement, see:
Video: No Kings March in Oakland

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