As of today, we are eight days out from fascist Trump taking office. Already we are witnessing the beginning of what he has promised with his anti-immigrant fascist agenda. On January 7, Border Patrol in marked and unmarked vehicles showed up at a popular gas station in Bakersfield, California, where farmworkers in the area gathered for their breakfast tortas. They began grabbing people as they were coming out of this gas station and asking for their papers, they blocked cars from exiting the lot and demanded to see people’s papers. This was the first place they raided in this operation they are disgustingly calling “Operation Return to Sender.” They loaded two vans full of farmworkers, and others they stopped and grabbed at the gas station.

The REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity drove to Bakersfield to take part in a local protest called by the local Rapid Response Network, “We will not be intimidated by Customs and Border Patrol,” in which hundreds turned out through the day. An influencer with 12.5M followers on TikTok showed up and made a video on the spot calling for people to come out. Her video got about 100K likes in an hour—people came out to that corner through the day and into the night. We were welcomed, and many people were open to connecting and coming together on January 20th in LA for the protest against Trump’s inauguration. The protest in the morning brought together farmworkers, families of those who had been picked up in the raids, and other local groups. We spoke with a few farmworkers who were telling us that for two days farmworkers hadn’t shown up for work because they were afraid, since Border Patrol did a sweep at an orange field and took some people. Families were staying home, not sending their kids to school, living in fear. 

In going out through the town, to the local businesses, talking to day laborers, farmworkers and others, we learned a lot about how much people are in fear right now. We stopped by one of the Home Depots where Border Patrol conducted one of their sweeps and talked to three (out of five) day laborers left in that Home Depot. They told us that on regular days, 25 people would come there looking for work. Since the sweep, that Home Depot has been empty. Border Patrol took some of the day laborers, and others just haven’t come back. One of the day laborers showed us a video he took of Border Patrol pulling someone over across the street at a drive-through fast food restaurant. He said that they cruise by every day looking for who to mess with, and since then, the streets have been empty, people staying home, not coming to look for work or shop. As we were talking to them in the Home Depot parking lot, a guy in a truck pulled up to warn the day laborers that Border Patrol had just been stopped at a shopping center nearby.

At a local business where they witnessed one of the sweeps happen, we talked to all the employees and the business owner. They were all outraged by the situation and shared with us what they witnessed the day of the sweep and the days after. They kept emphasizing that this was targeted at the farmworkers—one employee said she witnessed the people in work clothes get pushed up against the wall and asked for their papers. The owner said he was heartbroken, that people came to his store for food and this is where they were picked up. He said he saw his employee crying that day and it broke his heart. One employee said that in a day, the farmworkers would get hundreds of tortas—the day we were there they had only sold three tortas. She said she hadn’t seen farmworkers come into the store since, and business was very slow. Some anti-immigrant forces called their store to threaten them for supporting the immigrants. One employee said they kept receiving phone calls threatening that they would go protest their business if they continued to speak out in support of immigrants—their response was that they would not stop supporting immigrants. 

Since then, there has continued to be reports of sweeps further north of Bakersfield, at some of the fields where farmworkers are supposed to be picking oranges this time of the year. This was righteous that people came out a few days after the sweeps. Today people came out in Fresno where they were also spotting Border Patrol. This must continue to be opposed and strengthened. People were very glad we were opening up the discussion of the fundamental cause of why all this is happening, a system that creates these conditions in which millions flee poverty, violence, USA-made conditions that force people out of their countries risking their lives and some even losing their lives along the way to get here, only to be living in fear, being persecuted and thrown out. Bringing to people the broadsheet “We Need and We Demand: A Whole New Way to Live, A Fundamentally Different System” and how much better we could live and organize society under a different system. A socialist system that would welcome people who are coming to contribute to building a society, going to work to uproot all forms of exploitation and oppression. We were sharing with people Bob Avakian’s leadership and his @BobAvakianOfficial social media message REVOLUTION #111, and opening up the discussion of being serious about defeating this fascism, which this very system of capitalism-imperialism has given rise to, what kind of resistance and opposition it will take to stop this fascism, and the need to defend the rights and lives of people targeted by this Trump/MAGA fascism. 

A few days back I was part of a team who went down to San Diego and got to talk to migrants on the other side of the wall. One of those interviews which was on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show really touched my heart—the story this brother shared with us, with tears in his eyes, is the story of millions more. A woman who traveled part of the way with him, from Mexico, was fleeing violence, afraid of being sent back to be killed in Mexico. They awaited their future behind a wall between Mexico and the U.S. These kinds of situations are already horrific, and it made me think about how much worse this will get with Trump—the demonization of these people, the persecution and terror that they plan to bring down, and the potential that we can see with people outraged about this, not being silent, but speaking out and calling on others to come out, like that famous influencer, taking to the streets and taking to social media. People discussing how are we going to go at this, how can we stop it? Some people ask, “Is it time to put something on the line to stop this?” The answer is YES!  As Bob Avakian said in social media message REVOLUTION #111:

As I have said before, this is not a time for demoralization and despair. It is not a time for accepting this Trump/MAGA fascism as “legitimate,” and staying within the confines of “how things work” under this system, as Democratic Party heads and other “mainstream” ruling class representatives are urging people to do. It is not a time for turning inward and attempting to “take care of self” as the juggernaut of Trump/MAGA fascism gains momentum and crushes masses of people. This is a time for reaching out to all the others who feel the same outrage at Trump/MAGA fascism—a time for collective action and self-sacrificing struggle for the greater good: the greater good of defeating this fascism.