Hi @WCU_Members,
Note: If we want to release this from WCU, it will have to be as a side-quest, so 7 Yes votes with maximum 3 coming from Steering.
I drafted a statement below in response to the (potential) upswing in ICE activity locally. While I do not think we are in a space to host rapid response stuff on our own, maybe we can at least push the conversation beyond “trump is not a king” type stuff that will just result in popular fronting with the democrats and repeating the downward cycle we’ve been living through.
I included it below and the google doc has the same text for you to edit.
STATEMENT FROM WORKING CLASS UNITY: ACTION AND ORGANIZATION TO DEFEND OUR COMMUNITIES
ICE agents chase farm workers through Ventura County fields. Masked federal agents, backed by armed soldiers, drag workers from Los Angeles job sites. ICE attempts to speak with elementary school children, lying about parental permission until school officials intervene. These raids target our neighbors, coworkers, and families—people, like all of us, working to survive.
Working Class Unity stands with the workers, tenants, and everyday people resisting these attacks. We must defend our communities. We must organize for power.
Both Parties Built This Machine
This terror predates Trump. Under Trump, ICE’s budget grew by $1.8 billion. Under Biden, it grew by $1.6 billion. The “Big Beautiful Bill” before Congress allocates over $150 billion for immigration enforcement.
Both parties fund the deportation machine. Both parties serve capital, not workers.
Republicans have turned into authoritarians using culture war to distract from class war. Democrats have turned into an identitarian know-it-alls uninterested in the economic struggles of working people. Republicans fan xenophobia; Democrats call economic anxiety bigotry. Neither governs for the working class.
Status Quo in D.C.
Families need relief from inflation and corporate greed. They need stable jobs and healthcare. Trump delivers none of these. His trade deals failed.Trump brought no peace to Gaza and no end to the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
At the same time, the GOP prepares to cut Medicaid for 11 million people while raiding ACA subsidies to fund $3.7 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy. Nearly 70% of these cuts go to the wealthiest fifth of Americans.
Employers exploit unequal labor protections to suppress all workers’ wages. They hold deportation threats over immigrant workers’ heads, forcing them to accept poverty wages and dangerous working conditions. This creates a race to the bottom that hurts every worker. The bosses who weaponize immigration status are to blame here, not the workers fighting to survive,
Democrats could have ended this exploitation by securing equal labor rights for all workers. Instead, they preserved the two-tier system that lets bosses divide and conquer. They decried “kids in cages” yet provided no lasting protections or citizenship pathways when they held power. Their vision for immigration: law-abiding immigrants mowing lawns, raising children, and washing dishes for the progressive overclass. Democrats offer platitudes and pathways to low-wage, insecure work. Like all working people, immigrants find no help beyond bare necessities.
Defend Now
We must protect our undocumented neighbors today. Host know-your-rights trainings. Pass union resolutions protecting undocumented rank-and-file through contract language. Join rapid response networks to track ICE movements and mobilize resistance.
But this fight extends beyond ICE agents to the ruling class they serve. A ruling class that can crush our efforts from a distance with a thousand small cuts. Defense and expressing our displeasure alone is not enough in the long term.
Build Power
Long-term victory requires mass democratic organizations. We must rebuild working-class collective life from the ground up through tenant unions, new forms of labor unions, and local assemblies. We cannot wait for attacks on our sisters and brothers to temporarily come together.
ICE is one enemy. But we face the same ruling class through our landlords, abusive bosses, and workplace exploitation. We lack democratic control of our country, which is why we have no free healthcare, why corporations jack prices unchecked, why our undocumented coworkers lack equal rights and get pitted against us. These are not separate fights. They are one fight against one system.
Today’s task is to protect each other. But protection must become the first step in building independent, democratically controlled working-class organizations. Together, we will fight for a world where we control our destinies and thrive.