Immigration: Capitalism in Crisis
By Leslie Willis-Leslie Willis is an organizer, educator and writer that has worked with several publications including the People’s Tribune. Leslie is based out of Chicago and works both locally and nationally.
With inflation raising the cost of living, there has been a lot of pressure by workers for higher wages. Strikes and labor unrest have been widespread over the past year and wages have risen but not enough to keep pace with inflation. Workers across the country are angry and having a hard time making ends meet. It is within this environment that we have had a sharp increase of people being allowed by the US government to apply for asylum in the country.
In the past year 1 million immigrants were added to the US population. The number of foreign-born people residing in the U.S. quadrupled since the 1960’s, so that now there are 46 million people in the U.S. who were not born here.
In fact, over 18% of the U.S. labor force is foreign born. There are more than 7 million undocumented workers working in the U.S. The undocumented occupy the most precarious position in the work force. Employers ignore their “rights” subjecting them to illegally low wages and even theft of wages, as well as sexual harassment, and physical and mental abuse! This law-breaking and degradation of workers rights threatens the rights of the entire U.S. working class. Working conditions for U.S. workers in general are being driven down closer to the level of third world countries with each passing day.
Corporate Interests
Examining the recent history of immigration to the U.S. we can see that the capitalist have allowed migration to the U.S. both legally and illegally because it benefits corporations. It drives down the cost of labor within the country in general and fills jobs that US workers have been reluctant to do; backbreaking field work, dangerous and difficult factory work, and service jobs (for businesses and for private individuals) – all for extremely low wages. There are also professional jobs being filled by immigrants in tech industry, health care, etc. (causing brain drain of other countries as well as helping to depress the cost of these types of labor in the U.S.).
Immigration is a part of the U.S. strategy to insure the economic interest of global capital. Corporations exploit workers and natural resources globally and the impoverished conditions that result make rebellions an ever-present danger. For example, it relieves a potential revolutionary situation to develop in Mexico because desperate workers can and do risk crossing into the US to seek employment. In this way the corporate interest protected by NAFTA are kept from being disrupted.
Immigration is also used to reinforce propaganda against countries rebelling against the U.S. (Venezuela, Cuba, China etc.), as well as immigrants coming from countries in the middle east, Ukraine, and Africa. They are all accompanied with propaganda about the U.S. governments’ benevolence, love of democracy etc.
Dangers for the Working Class
Due to technology, good jobs are disappearing. U.S. born workers are increasingly working in gig jobs and part time, contingent and low wage jobs. This “new class” makes up about half of the working class, and their position is not stable. They border on being pushed completely outside the economy and unable to purchase the necessities for survival. Competition for jobs, even bad jobs, is a fact of life. This competition for jobs has made the issue of immigration and immigrants in particular a convenient target for the ruling class causing deep division in the working class. Most of the immigrants coming in are part of this new class too, but impoverishment of the U.S. born workers has made this issue a great tool for preventing this section of the workers from uniting to fight for their common needs.
In addition to disarming the working class these divisions have become the means to build a social base for fascism. Trump is singled out as the leader in building this social base and there is no question that that is what he is all about, but it is a mistake to see Biden as something other than “good cop” in this “good cop-bad cop” scam. It is important to see past the rhetoric and look at what they do. So, while Trump is now using Hitler’s racially charged language of declaring that the immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” the present administration in power (Democrats) have been strengthening corporate power and control over the country. Public funds are financing wars abroad and greater oppression at home. No matter how “progressive” government officials claim to be – no reforms materialize.
Homelessness in the nation is increasing while housing costs continue to rise. The lines at Food Pantries continue to increase. Health care costs continue to rise, and hospitals are turning away the sick and dying and even discharging patients in their hospital gown onto the sidewalk outside their doors. There are nearly 5,445,000 citizens incarcerated in federal and state prisons, local jails and on probation and parole. In the U.S., slave-like prison labor is a billion-dollar industry!
In addition to these shocking material conditions for the American working class, tech companies are working with the state to control and censor information that is contrary to a government approved script. It is the Biden administration that is labeling those Americans who are in opposition to its policies as “terrorist.” This is setting the stage for outlawing dissent of any kind.
An example of what is developing are the recent events in Atlanta, Georgia, where 61 people protesting the building of a “cop city” (training facility) for environmental reasons, have been charged with the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) and several are even being charged with “domestic terrorism.”
Knowing the present vicious and callous inhuman governing that American workers are subjected to, you must question any claims of benevolence by the Biden administration both globally and here at home. The “humanitarian crisis” that has resulted from hundreds of thousands of immigrants seeking refuge in the U.S. and the resulting political games being played with these human beings is the direct result of U.S. sponsored exploitation and intervention in other countries.
We have seen the concentration camps at the border and now we are witnessing the massive busing of thousands of people into a few cities where they are summarily dumped. In September alone 260,000 people were bused from the Southern border into urban centers.
Government at every level is making this the “problem” of these cities like New York, Chicago, and Denver. The brunt of the burden of sheltering and feeding these people is being placed on the backs of the poorest communities. In Chicago, for example, immigrants are being housed in community buildings in working class neighborhoods where resources for struggling residents have practically disappeared. They are not housing immigrants in the huge convention centers downtown or in the thousands of nearly empty skyscrapers, or even in the wealthier neighborhoods.
In New York and elsewhere some of the city’s ordinances that offered some protection for the “unsheltered” are being challenged and threatened. The law in New York that says that anyone needing shelter must be given shelter is now under fire using the excuse that they can’t house everyone who needs it anymore due to the influx of immigrants. Another alarming development is the use of this crisis as an excuse for building large tent encampments for the homeless immigrants. In Chicago, Brandon Johnson, a so-called progressive mayor, has been spear heading the building of a 30-million-dollar camp by GardaWorld Federal Services (a subsidiary of Aegis Defense Services), the same company employed to bus the immigrants around the country. We have to wonder if such controlled camps will be the “solution” they have in mind for U.S. workers unable to afford housing.
Which way for the Working Class?
Corporations operate globally, they manipulate natural resources around the world, they manipulate the working class around the world, they manipulate the laws and even the leaders of many countries to fall in line with what is best for profit making and corporate control of the world.
Never mind that the environment is ruined and that lives are destroyed. Most people, if they had a choice, would like to live comfortably in the land where they were born. So why are there 150 million people today who have left their country of origin? The only possible answer is that they do this to survive!
A scientific view insists that we look at the material world, at the basics of the economy. How are goods and services produced differently today? With the change from industrial to electronic production not only are things produced at greater speed – it is done so with fewer and fewer workers. What happens when there are superfluous workers? Workers that corporations don’t need?
In capitalist countries that means that the ruling class has a crisis! If they don’t need you – they won’t want to feed you! This crisis produces an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots. With extreme poverty comes social deterioration (unsafe living conditions, gang rule, corruption at every level), widespread unrest, escalating tensions between countries, wars and of course millions and millions of people on the move.
Here in the U.S., we reside in the “belly of the beast” as our country plays the dominant role in the world in perpetuating the conditions for poverty and war. Therefore, our working class, particularly those at the bottom of the U.S. economy, have a profound role to play, if we are aware of it and will accept it and will fulfill it. The incoming poor immigrants, the “wretched of the earth,” are the brothers and sisters, the comrades, of the U.S. workers also at the bottom who also must fight to survive. We must spread the word that unity is the path forward. We are huge in number, growing every day, and it is up to us to build a different world. Afterall there is an abundance and the technology if owned by the people could take care of all the basic needs of all the people.
Commodities that can be produced without labor means that commodities can be distributed without money. The first step is to unite and to hold such a vision in our sights as we struggle for our right to survive and thrive.
Written by Leslie Willis for Neighborhood News
