DACA Deadline Looms,
1.8 Million Lives at Stake—
This Fascist Horror Must be Defeated!

February 26, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Noon February 26. The Supreme Court today declined to clear the way for the Trump regime to end DACA on March 5 and immediately begin deporting those whose DACA status has expired.   Two federal district judges ruled that DACA recipients should be allowed to renew their status while Trump's order to end DACA is being appealed. This Supreme Court decision has no impact on the million+ Dreamers who have not applied and are subject to deportation now.

This is not a moment to let down our guard. The Trump regime continues its all-round assault on immigrants. What this means for the 1.8 million young people and all immigrants has not changed.  The stakes of defeating this assault have not changed. This is a moment to make the March 1 actions even more powerful.

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1.8 million young people—the Dreamers—will begin facing deportation on March 5.

700,000 who registered under the DACA program could become “illegals,” along with over a million who didn’t register and are also under threat. They could be picked up by any cop or turned in by a racist reactionary who suspects them based on their accent or skin color, and reports them to immigration authorities. They could be locked in detention centers, put on airplanes or buses and sent back to countries they haven’t seen since infancy. Many of them could face death if they are returned.

Who are they? People whose parents were forced to leave homelands shredded and torn by poverty and violence imposed and perpetuated by the United States. Whose parents were forced to undertake treacherous journeys carrying them over mountains and across deserts to evade the sensors, barbed wire, and patrols of La Migra. Whose parents worked shit jobs at meager wages, always fearful of possible immigration raids, so their children could live safely.

They are young people whose parents brought them to this country as infants or children. Young people who have lived most of their lives in this country—where they have gone to school, gotten jobs, fallen in love, supported their families, begun families, been a part of their neighborhood. Young people who have had to fight every day to have their humanity recognized by a system that has hounded them and their families. And for the past year, targeted by a fascist regime that demonizes and threatens them constantly.

Think about what these 1.8 million people face now. If they were all torn from their families, lined up and gathered in city squares across the country, cuffed and put into prison buses and shipped to prisons, sent out of the country, would you be shocked? How would you confront that towering injustice? This is the kind of horror the Trump/Pence regime has in store, even if people are picked off one by one.

No Excuses, No Looking the Other Way

“It can’t happen here.”

“That’s their problem, it doesn’t concern me.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

The fascists in power are barreling ahead toward a truly horrific and utterly unjust crime against humanity. They have the personnel, the legal machinery, and the logistics to carry it out. It is happening here.

It is the concern of everyone in society who has any shred of humanity and compassion. If you know this horror is happening and do nothing to stop it, you sacrifice your own humanity.

There’s a lot that can be done to stop it, by going into the streets in determined and defiant nonviolent mass action, as well as other nonviolent expressions of opposition.

A Battering Ram for Ethnic Cleansing

Trump’s intentions for all immigrants are clear. Just last week he called immigrant youth “animals and killers,” who don’t shoot their alleged victims because guns “aren’t violent enough.” He promised to get “[immigrant] offenders off our streets and behind bars and get them behind bars for a very long time, or get them out of our country.”

Making America white again, including by forcing out and deporting millions of immigrants, is a cornerstone of Trump’s fascist program. And it is coming to a head now. If these fascists get over with deportations of the DACA youth they will have laid the basis to go after all immigrants and made a big step toward consolidating fascism. This must not happen!

This Fascist Assault Needs To Be Defeated

There will no doubt be further maneuvering and attempts at deal-making between the Republi-fascists and leading Democrats over DACA in the period immediately ahead. They are bartering and dickering over the lives and futures of millions of people. But three things are clear.

One, the Trump/Pence regime will continue to launch massive assaults, ultimately aimed at deporting millions, instituting a virtual war zone along the border, and severely restricting further immigration by Black and Brown people from what Trump calls “shithole” countries.

Two, the Democratic Party has demonstrated repeatedly that they are aiding and abetting Trump/Pence in the normalization of fascism. Relying on them to defend DACA is suicide. They have already agreed to allot $25 billion for a border wall, in exchange for a “debate” which amounted to nothing on immigration in the Senate. The Trump/Pence regime’s venomous attacks on immigrants have been getting more blatant and outrageous from the day Trump was inaugurated, and the Democratic Party leadership has been focused on working out a “deal” with Trump, and calling on people to wait for the elections, in 2018, 2020, and...

Three, and most important, it’s up to us, the masses of people, to change this. Vote with your feet, vote in the street. The strongest possible fight to defeat any attempt to undermine or eliminate DACA, and to stop all attacks on and deportations of immigrants, is urgently needed. This entire fascist regime needs to be driven out, and the fight against the attacks on immigrants must contribute to that. The protests planned by Refuse Fascism and others on March 1 must be as powerful as possible—you need to be at one of them, or organize your own protest, wearing black, remaining silent for 11 minutes for all 11 million undocumented immigrants, calling on others to participate. These attacks must not stand.

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