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IMMIGRANT DEFENSE IS THE FRONTLINE OF THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY  
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Bill Gallegos
September 18, 2025
New Liberator
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_ “If we can dream it, we can make it happen.” That is the vision
that should guide us as we work together to defend our immigrant
sisters and brothers, to safeguard and enhance our democracy, and to
defeat the fascist tide that would enslave us all. _

, Chicago protestors rally against ICE (Credit: Paul Goyette, CC
BY-NC 2.0).

 

The fascist tide in the US has become a tsunami. On August 12, 2025,
President Donald Trump sent the National Guard into Washington, DC,
the nation’s capital, under the usual racist pretext of “law and
order.” He had previously sent the US military into Los Angeles to
support his horrendous ethnic cleansing campaign, aimed at forcibly
deporting millions of undocumented immigrants. Still, Trump’s raids
also detained many legal immigrants and even US citizens who happened
to be present. ICE, short for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has
been raiding workplaces, courthouses, parks, and public schools across
the country, and detaining thousands of people.

A US federal appeals court ruled on July 11, 2025, that ICE had to
stop conducting its indiscriminate raids, which were based on racial
profiling. The MAGA administration had the nerve to assert that people
with Brown skin who might speak with an accent gave them legal cause
to assume they are undocumented immigrants. In recent weeks, ICE has
resumed its raids in Los Angeles, defying a court order. It seemed a
test by the administration as to whether the courts can restrain their
unconstitutional and undemocratic actions. And indeed, on September 8,
2025, the US Supreme Court, using its shadow docket, sided with the
administration and effectively allowed ICE to continue racial
profiling, signaling its willingness to legitimize unconstitutional
attacks on immigrant communities.

Trump has also issued an executive order that would overturn the
constitutional right to birthright citizenship – a right that grants
anyone born to immigrants in this country to US citizenship, and a
right that US courts have consistently upheld. The administration has
also revoked temporary protected status, or TPS, for hundreds of
thousands of Haitians, Venezuelans, and other refugees from violence
or natural disaster. These refugees are now subject to deportation,
for many, back to a homeland convulsed with chaos and violence.

Clearly, Trump and MAGA, as they promised in Project 2025, are setting
out to destroy any vestiges of democracy that can potentially
challenge their broader objective of establishing white minority rule.
The goal is an apartheid Christian nationalist ethno- state that will
allow the billionaire class to openly rule the US as befits their
interests of never-ending profits.

To carry out his effort to destroy the remaining shreds of US
democracy, Trump has:

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Promised to send the National Guard into other cities with large Black
and Brown populations and where Democrats are the governing majority
– Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Baltimore, and other urban
centers.

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Compelled the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a bill that
allocates more than $150 billion to the Border Patrol and ICE, now the
largest domestic military force in the country. This was accompanied
by new tax breaks for billionaires and drastic cuts in funding for
Medicaid, public education, and environmental and climate protections.

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Begun to establish a network of concentration camps throughout the US
to house immigrants and potentially any opponents of the Trump regime.

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Ordered Texas Governor Greg Abbot to gerrymander Congressional
districts with large numbers of Black and Latino voters. The immediate
aim is to create five new Republican seats. Trump and MAGA rightfully
fear that the Republicans will lose their majority in Congress and
possibly even the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections. They want to
stack the decks against this potential outcome. And just in case, they
are “cleansing” voter rolls in several states to eliminate
millions of potentially Democratic voters.

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Purged voters, aiming to fire or push out hundreds of thousands of
federal employees, and voided the union contract with several federal
employee unions representing four out of five federal workers. Federal
jobs have been a major area of employment for Black and Latino
communities. Trump and MAGA also fear that federal workers could
resist (in very creative on-the-job ways) the dismantling of
environmental and climate regulation, workers’ rights, consumer
protections, etc. The attack on federal workers is the new PATCO –
the beginning of an all-out effort to destroy US unions.

The Storm Troopers Are in Our Streets – What Can We Do?

 
ICE and the Border Patrol are the MAGA storm troopers, playing the
same role that the Nazi SS did for Hitler: to terrorize a vulnerable
minority and their communities, and then crush all opposition by force
or the threat of force. With GOP majorities, Trump and MAGA have a
compliant Congress and Senate, and a stacked US Supreme Court. The
Robert’s Court has already ruled, on very thin grounds, that US
presidents have total executive authority to pretty much do whatever
they want.

Clearly, we are on the road to fascism, folks. We can give it other
names, such as authoritarianism or despotism, but finally, it means
the destruction of democracy wrapped in a brutal racist cloak.

Let’s also be clear that Trump and MAGA are not invincible. We can
defeat this New MAGA confederacy if we BLOCK their assaults, BROADEN
the pro-democracy anti-fascist united front, and BUILD a more
substantive and equitable democracy that embodies the concept of
“people before profits.”

A woman with a red skirt walks in front of a line of armed troops for
the “No Kings” protest June 14, 2025 (credit: Larissa Puro
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BLOCK MAGA’s ethnic cleansing campaign

 
Donald Trump launched his ethnic cleansing campaign in California,
mainly in Los Angeles which has the largest immigrant community in the
country. Masked and heavily armed ICE agents, accompanied by armored
vehicles and helicopters, stormed into agricultural fields,
workplaces, schools, parks, and even courthouses where immigrants were
seeking to secure legal documentation. ICE agents even assaulted US
Senator Alex Padilla when he attempted to ask questions of a
government official about the raids, and followed up that attack by
assaulting labor leader David Huerta, president of the Service
Employees International Union-United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW).

Resistance to these tactics was immediate, broad, and militant.
California Governor Gavin Newsom opposed the sending in of the
National Guard and took Trump to court to stop this move. Citywide
immigrant defense networks were established which warned people of ICE
raids, provided legal support and mutual aid, and effectively utilized
social medi, and even the mainstream media to let LA residents know
what terror was being carried out in their city, which is a sanctuary
city. These networks included labor unions, worker centers, immigrant
support organizations, faith organizations, and others. Los Angeles
Mayor Karen Bass, the Los Angeles City Council, and the Los Angeles
County Board of Supervisors condemned the raids and stood up for the
rights of immigrants. In fact, when ICE agents attempted to enter two
Los Angeles public schools, they were stopped by the schools’
principals and teachers.

Faced with this resistance, Trump sent 700 US Marines and 4,000
National Guard troops into the city in a clear effort to crush this
resistance. Well, you know what? They failed! Trump was forced to
remove his storm troopers from the city, the last of them leaving on
July 31, 2025.

What does the experience of Los Angeles tell us? First, that
resistance is never futile. People from nearly every Los Angeles
community – from the barrios to the suburbs – stood up to ICE and
MAGA. It was a true multi-racial resistance led by those communities
most affected by the ICE raids.

Second, a broad united front is the key to victory. The united front
in Los Angeles included Black, Brown, and Asian Pacific Islander
activists and leaders; a strong network of immigrant rights
organizations; Black, Brown, and API worker center; broad sectors of
the faith community’ legal and civil rights organizations; artists,
musicians and other cultural workers; senior organizations;
pro-Palestine organizations; socialist organizations, and…the
Democratic governor; the state’s Democratic US senators and
Congressional representatives; and LA’s Democratic mayor, city
council, school board, and county board of supervisors. It was this
broad united front that forced the Trump Administration to withdraw
its military forces. This is an essential lesson for every community
where the administration sends in the troops or threatens to do so. Of
course, ICE is still doing its dirty work in Los Angeles, so the
struggle continues. However, the city has learned that a unified and
militant resistance movement can effectively counter MAGA.

Image Credit: Greg Lilly, “Together We Rise
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April 5 2025 (CC BY-NC 2.0
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BROADEN the Anti-Fascist United Front

 
ICE continues to terrorize communities in Los Angeles and throughout
the US. And everywhere it operates, a dynamic resistance movement has
arisen. The task of the US left and progressive movement is to support
these movements, to help them connect into a coherent national force,
and to help develop a strategy that can guide the multiple creative
tactics that have emerged from among the masses, a plan whose goal is
to build up a unified and militant resistance, and which weakens the
forces of the New Confederacy/MAGA forces. To accomplish this task, we
will need to be unafraid to work with a broad and diverse array of
forces, including many leaders of the Democratic Party, top union
officials, leaders of mainstream nonprofits, entertainment figures,
and others whom we might not usually consider our allies. This idea is
anathema to some on the left who would rather drink turpentine than
work with, say, US Senator Chuck Schumer. I would argue that in order
to defeat the fascist threat, we need all of the allies we can get.

Let’s keep in mind the enemy we are up against: a right-wing social
movement supported by a significant sector of the billionaire ruling
class, a social movement that now controls the White House and the US
Congress e, as well as having a Supreme Court majority and a
significant number of pro-MAGA federal judges. It has massive media
support from Fox News and a diverse array of social media platforms.
It has political dominance in 28 states. The enemy is also fed by
well-funded think tanks such as the ones that developed Project 2025,
a large social base among white evangelical churches, neo-Nazi
organizations, and a growing array of well-armed militias.

We will not defeat these forces without a united front that has the
necessary resources, a coherent strategy, effective leadership, and a
diverse and broad range of allies. We need a united front that can
work effectively at all levels of struggle: policy, electoral,
litigation, mass action, peaceful civil disobedience, communications,
media, and work on the art and cultural front.

As the experience of California shows, MAGA can be defeated if there
is a strong leadership core and a broad front. But ICE is still
conducting raids throughout California, sending masked thugs into
workplaces and other areas where immigrants gather. The fight
continues, and even in California, we cannot achieve complete victory
– kicking out the ICE thugs – unless the united front is even
broader, and with a clearly defined longer-term strategy.

 

“DTLA No Kings Protest,” Mike Velasquez
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(June 14, 2025) CC BY-NC 2.0
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BUILD a Multiracial, Working-Class Democracy

 
While defeating the MAGA fascists must be our absolute number one
priority, the US left should work together on this project AND work to
advance a project for a more democratic, equitable, just, and
non-imperialist US society. While a return to the “status quo”
before Trump would be a huge victory for working and oppressed people
in the US (e.g., winning the reproductive protections provided by Roe
v. Wade), we should be working towards a much better society than
that. This could include:

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Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights law, which would protect and
vastly expand voting rights for working people.

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Passing comprehensive reproductive justice legislation that completely
protects the right to abortion.

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Passing the PRO Act, to facilitate unionization throughout all US
industries. This would be a huge economic and social benefit for tens
of millions of US workers, most especially workers of color and women.

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Restoring the Department of Education, to reinstitute federal
oversight of public schools, reverse privatization efforts, expand
funding for K–12 and higher education, ensure robust programs for
English language learners, and provide student debt relief.

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Creating strong legal rights and protections for trans people and the
LGtBQ+ community

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Restoring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to protect working
people from predatory lending, abusive debt collection, discriminatory
financial practices, and corporate fraud.

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Abolishing ICE and creating an immigration system that facilitates the
processing of asylum and refugee applications, and creating a path to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently residing in the US.

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Grant immediate citizenship to all DACA recipients.

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Create a truly progressive federal tax system that makes the top 1%
pay their fair share of taxes.

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Cut the military budget by 75%, close overseas military bases, and
devote those resources to a comprehensive jobs program to build
affordable housing, schools, health centers, and hospitals; to clean
up the environment; and to build clean energy projects as part of a
just transition from the fossil fuel economy.

These are just examples of the type of democratic and equitable
society that we can and should create. But we can only do this if we
work together. The billionaires will never give up their power
without—as Frederick Douglass reminded us—a demand, an organized
multiracial, worker-led movement that seeks to build a truly inclusive
society that honors the history and contributions of the Indigenous
peoples first of all, but also of the African American, Latino, and
Asian Pacific Islander communities that have done so much to build the
economic and social structures of our society. As the saying goes,
“If we can dream it, we can make it happen.” That is the vision
that should guide us as we work together to defend our immigrant
sisters and brothers, to safeguard and enhance our democracy, and to
defeat the fascist tide that would enslave us all.

Si Se Puede!

_Bill Gallegos: Proud child of Aztlan, of the incredible liberation
struggle of of the Chicano people and of the working class struggle
for a new society free from exploitation and all forms of privilege. _

_The New Liberator is a production of Liberation Road
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thinking and writing of our members, fellow travelers, and friends. We
typically post once or twice a week, hot takes and sober analysis, on
domestic and global events, history and culture, from a bench of
alternating columnists and one-off contributors.  The New Liberator
is free today. But if you’ve enjoyed our work, you can tell us that
our writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. _

* ICE Raids
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* deportations
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* MAGA
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* Fascism
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* Anti-Fascism
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* democracy
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