Nine Immigrants Dead, 17 in Critical Condition, in a Trailer Turned into an “Oven”
Cause of Death: THIS FUCKING SYSTEM!
July 24, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Just after midnight on Sunday, July 23, a tractor trailer was found outside a Walmart in San Antonio, Texas, with 38 immigrants inside, eight already dead from the brutal San Antonio heat that turned the trailer into an oven. The 30 still alive were rushed to hospitals, 17 in life-threatening conditions. A ninth person has since died as this report is being written, and suffering with heat strokes or heat injuries, many of those who live are going to have irreversible brain damage, according to the fire chief on the scene. Two of those hospitalized were 15-year-old children. There may have been more than 100 people inside this trailer at one point, undocumented immigrants from Mexico and possibly Central America.
Politicians and the head of Homeland Security rushed to make sure everyone knew who to blame, saying these immigrants were the “victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo.” The ruthless actions of smugglers may have been the immediate cause of this horrific end for the immigrants. But who created the situation that forces people to leave their countries and turn to smugglers to cross the border? As Bob Avakian says:
Now I can just hear these reactionary fools saying, “Well, Bob, answer me this. If this country is so terrible, why do people come here from all over the world? Why are so many people trying to get in, not get out?”...Why? I’ll tell you why. Because you have fucked up the rest of the world even worse than what you have done in this country. You have made it impossible for many people to live in their own countries as part of gaining your riches and power. (BAsics 1:14)
“Ruthless” and “indifferent”? No one comes anywhere CLOSE to those who rule this capitalist-imperialist system in the ruthlessness and indifference toward immigrants. It’s this same system that has filled the morgues in cities along the Mexican border with the unidentified remains of hundreds of men, women, and children burned up in the Southwest desert sun every year. People who were deliberately channeled by the actions of the U.S. into these deserts so they will perish—and to send a message to others not to try.
And now we have fascists with state power in their hands who have declared all undocumented immigrants “filth,” “criminal aliens,” “rapists and drug dealers,” and ratcheted up their border crackdown. They are forcing people to take even greater risks to escape and find a place to work and survive. And if they are able to survive this trip through hell, it is the ruling class of this capitalist-imperialist system that doesn’t blink an eye at treating them like criminals while at the same time ruthlessly exploiting them in the most dangerous, back-breaking, lowest-paying jobs in this country.
Who’s responsible for the horrible deaths of these immigrants in San Antonio? This fucking system!
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