The deaths of 41 migrants, along with 27 life-threatening injuries, at the National Institute of Migration in Ciudad Juarez that occurred on Monday night was a tragedy. Making it worse is the fact that it would have been completely preventable were it not for the AMLO-Biden governments and their anti-immigrant, anti-people policies, which only serve the interests of the monopolies on both sides of the border.
Like always, the working class, internationally and domestically, has borne the brunt of this capitalist crisis. The working class and popular sectors in Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, and El Salvador have been among the hardest hit. It is from these countries that the majority of the migrants originate. These migrants, owning little to nothing and with the bourgeois state refusing to help, are forced to panhandle, wash windshields, or sell candy just to make ends meet. This is not how the migrants want to live, but it is the bloody anti-people policies of the capitalist AMLO and Biden governments which keep them like this.
It was under these conditions that the national guard rounded up and detained the 68 migrants that Monday morning. The AMLO-Biden governments attempt to mislead the people by claiming that they are “rescuing the migrants” from these conditions. In reality, they detain them only to send them back to the southern border or even out of the country entirely. Their actions expose their words as nothing but lies.
While the bourgeois AMLO-Biden governments share the majority of the blame, the immigration agents and their bosses are not without blame. The video of what happened shows how the guards abandoned the migrants, leaving them to burn to death. They had the means to let them out, to save their lives, but chose not to. The guards saw when the fires were lit and still made no attempts to open the cell only to run away. Despite this, we must not allow the class enemy to absolve itself by focusing on the individual agents and their actions. Whatever blame that those agents bear, the AMLO-Biden governments bear a hundred times that for creating and perpetuating the conditions that led to the deaths of 41 fellow proletarians.
All of this is happening in the context of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a policy promoted by the bourgeoisie of all three countries to strengthen their political ties. The rabid anti-immigration policies of the US and Mexico are directly related to this deal. The AMLO government, wholly subservient to the interests of the monopolies, is more than happy to assist the US in carrying out these bloody policies. One such policy is the so-called Migrant Protection Policy, more accurately known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy. The US has used this policy to force asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their applications are processed. To date, there have been 81,350 cases processed under the MPP, meaning that close to 100,000 people, many of whom were already in the US, have been forced to remain at the border. Even before the national guard was officially established, AMLO promised to use it to assist this anti-people policy. Of course, all under the guise of “helping” migrants. We see exactly what this “help” amounts to, nothing but arrests, detentions and deaths. Make no mistake, these immigration stations are nothing more than camps of misery and death.
It does not need to be this way. It should not be the case that people are forced to leave their countries, risking their lives for a dignified life. It should not be the case that our fellow proletarians should lose their lives at the hands of capitalist barbarity. Despite what the AMLO-Biden governments say, this state of affairs is not unavoidable. It is capitalism which perpetuates this injustice, and there is only one solution: socialism. Only through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the taking of state power by the working class and its allies can a world free of this injustice be created.
The Communist Workers’ Platform of the United States of America stands in complete solidarity with the migrants, who are our companions in class struggle. We call on the workers of the US and Mexico to fight against these attacks on migrants. To accept no compromises with our class enemy and to reject any and all false perceptions that seek to turn us against the migrants. We call on the workers in the US to mobilize in protest against the Biden government, which implements these barbaric anti-people laws, and against the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which carry them out. The CWP recognizes the victory of the working class of both countries lies in their collective work. To this end, we call on the workers of Mexico and the US to link their efforts and support each other in any way they can, to draw themselves closer together in this struggle against the bourgeois governments of the US and Mexico.
Workers of the world, unite!
Communist Workers’ Platform of the United States of America
