By Nationalities Department, Party of Communists USA

Under the new Trump presidency, the issue of the protection of the foreign-born has taken on a new urgency. To quote Trump’s Executive Order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,”

The Attorney General, in coordination with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall take all appropriate action to prioritize the prosecution of criminal offenses related to the unauthorized entry or continued unauthorized presence of aliens in the United States.

Furthermore, looking into his other order “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats”:

“… And the United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”

From these orders, we can clearly see what the Trump Administration is trying to do with immigrants. But what has been the communist position historically on immigration? Communists have always been in the forefront of defending the foreign-born that come to our country. In the 1930s, communists set up the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born led by Louise Pettibone Smith. Their job was to defend foreign-born progressives against deportation.

Communists have remained consistent in their support of rights for the foreign-born. But the capitalists want to have it both ways. They want to be able to bring in cheap labor and scab labor, but get rid of them when they become more militant. It is the job of communists to organize these foreign workers into unions, and to prevent the native workers from falling into reaction regarding the foreign-born. In other words, “foreign-born and native-born unite and fight!”

This policy is exemplified in the following section from the program of the Party of Communist USA, most recently amended at its Third Congress in April 2024.

Immigration Policy

We are a nation of immigrants; a “melting pot” of many ethnic backgrounds. Immigrants built this country. Emma Lazarus, a socialist Jewish-American who worked with Jewish victims of anti-semitic pogroms (indiscriminate massacres of Jewish villages in the Tsarist Russian Empire), wrote a famous poem, “New Colossus.” Lazarus’s poem is emblazoned on the foundation of the Statue of Liberty and calls for welcoming foreign immigrants to American shores.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

“Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

“The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

“Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

“I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Immigrant history included: indentured servitude, forced importation of people from Africa as slaves, those fleeing religious intolerance, workers and farmers escaping oppression and seeking economic opportunity, victims of political persecution from fascism, imperialism, feudalism, and monarchy.

Capitalists historically, and in the present day, have divided workers on ethnic lines by using intolerance and bigotry. We must not fall into these racist traps and we must unite workers against our collective exploitation regardless of our background.

It is the U.S. Corporate economic policies, using oppressed nations as military bases, which cause peoples in over-exploited economies of the world to flee their poor economic situation and seek more economic stability in the U.S. Most people would prefer to stay in their home country if it was economically stable, but it is the U.S. corporate policies and its militarism that prevents this. Historically speaking this was not an issue in places like the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations because their economic policy did not create unfavorable economic conditions.

Immigrants who have lived in this country for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, or their entire life knowing this country as their own should be granted American citizenship.

Those who are undocumented living in the United States are under the worst conditions. They are paid less and often don’t receive benefits; their rent and housing cost more; they cannot use emergency services like the rest of us; and due to threats of deportation, they cannot participate in union collective bargaining. Their immigration status forces them into a more precarious life. The capitalists benefit from this situation while the citizens and immigrants do not. Therefore, we demand a workable, accessible path to citizenship for all those in this country.

We must address the country’s historically racist policies that have created super profits for the employers when it comes to hiring immigrants. Such a stain on our history includes laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), Mexican Repatriation Act (1929), the Japanese Internment Executive Order (1942), and the Muslim Travel Bans (2017). Also, the Immigration and Nationalities Act (1952) authorizes the exclusion of foreign immigrants on the basis of Communist affiliation from entering the country. We must push for creating legislation that prohibits discrimination based on racial, ethnic, national-lines or Communist affiliations.

We are calling to extend legislation to help set up a Federal agency that would deal with immigration services, United States citizenship, and employment that will ease the integration process into this country and help immigrants find jobs. Emulating the famous Emma Lazarus plaque on the base of the Statue of Liberty, we welcome the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and the wretched refuse to our teeming shores.”

On the other hand, fascist leaders, hired thugs, and collaborators of failed US supported dictatorships (for example, Marcos – Philippines, Batista – Cuba, the Shah – Iran) who terrorized masses of their own people, must be denied entry into our country; they are unwelcome here.

What exactly is fascism? Is it the same as authoritarianism? Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitrov at the 7th Congress of the Communist International (1935) defined fascism as the “open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”

No longer should we allow America to be a safe haven for foreign Nazis and other fascists. It was scandalous that 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers were welcomed to our shores after WWII through “Operation Paperclip”. We now know that these Nazi collaborators were used to empower the interest of American imperialist influence, both in this country, and on the world stage.

The United States should not be a home for these fascists. We cannot import fascists from other countries due to their negative influence on the American public through lobbying, propaganda, and normalizing their reactionary rhetoric. That is why we must not allow fascism to fester in our country. The Party is unconditionally against fascists entering our shores.

As William Sylvis, founder of the National Labor Union, reminded us in 1869:

“What is wanted is for every union to help inculcate the grand ennobling idea that the interests of [working people] are one; that there should be no distinction of race or nationality; no classification of Jew or Gentile; Christian or infidel; that there is one dividing line, that which separates mankind into two great classes, the class that labors and the class that lives by others’ labor.” In closing, the position of communists and all progressive elements of society must be on the side of the protection of the foreign-born.