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Two articles from the Trotskyist press guide our discussion of immigration.
- An article in The Militant (published by the Socialist Workers Party--SWP) entitled As immigration spikes, workers look to unify the working class. The author is the competent Alyson Kennedy.
- News, as reported in Left Voice, about the "far-right" Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The post, by Inés In interviewing Inés Heider, is Protests in Germany: “The Whole Regime Is Shifting to the Right”
Back in 2020 Ms. Kennedy ran for president on a campaign program demanding
AMNESTY FOR ALL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS in the US, a life-and-death question for the unions to unite workers and cut across divisions the bosses use to drive down wages. For access to driver’s licenses for all.
Fast-forward to today, and the last two paragraphs of her current article are these:
Under capitalism workers compete for jobs. Opening the borders would vastly intensify that competition, fueling unemployment and spreading misery among working people, immigrant and native-born alike.
Instead, the call for amnesty for all workers living in the U.S., regardless where they come from, coupled with support for revolutionary battles abroad, is the road forward for the working class.
“It’s bad what is going on,” Juanita Castillo, a retired factory worker, told this Militant worker-correspondent when I knocked on her door and said I was the SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas and wanted her opinion. “Immigrants who are coming now don’t care about the law. Before when immigrants were coming they were scared they were going to be deported or put in jail, now they are not,” Castillo said.
Or again,
“I work with immigrants from Cuba and El Salvador. In Minnesota I worked with workers from Romania and Bosnia at a bakery,” [union steward Jerome] Crawford said. “They came from war-torn countries for a better life. You have the president telling them they are welcome and the governor rebutting this. It is a union issue because you can’t join unions if you don’t have citizenship.”
Compared to her campaign platform four years ago, her current article is a more sober analysis of some of the trade-offs of immigration. Gone is the certitude that it is always beneficial. She admits that new immigrants compete with domestic workers for jobs, thus depressing wages. More, high levels of immigration make things harder for unions. Her quote from Mr. Crawford ("...war-torn countries...") suggests that she's aware of problems of acculturation and assimilation.
Trump is very popular among the working class (which is why The Militant pursues that audience), and his hard stance on immigration is an important cause. So it makes sense that the Party is rethinking their policy.
Though she still demands total amnesty, but I don't see how unconditional amnesty can lead to any coherent immigration policy. It begs the question: is the SWP still Trotskyist? Or are they just kowtowing to their Trumpian audience?
Left Voice, meanwhile, has participated in mass protests in Germany against a policy supported by at least some members of the AfD. It's described by Ms. Heider.
The scale of the mobilization reflected the shock provoked by the revelation on January 10 by the investigative media Correctiv of a plan initiated by the AfD and neo-Nazi activists, as well as members of the conservative CDU, to mass expel several million people from the country on the basis of their origin, as well as those who come to refugees’ aid, notably in the Mediterranean.
A clearer description can be found in a publication of an EU Agency here:
According to the “re-migration” plan, migrants will be forcefully deported to their countries of origin via mass deportation and will target citizens holding German passports who, Martin Sellner, a member of the Identitarian Movement, claims, “form aggressive, rapidly growing parallel societies”.
I share Ms. In's and Ms. Heider's disgust at the idea of deporting citizens--either in Germany or in the US. Deporting citizens who have lived in Germany for many decades and fill important roles such as nurses and engineers, is neither moral nor good for the economy. The very idea is crazy-talk, and I'm reassured that Germans are nearly unanimously rejecting it.
Similarly, the demands to expel the 15-20 million illegals now living in the US are utterly unrealistic and very expensive. It would be the largest forced migration ever in history. Trump's promise that he could do it "humanely" is ridiculous.
On the other hand, Left Voice has long supported open borders, including the abolition of the US customs agency, ICE. Unlike The Militant, they make no mention of any downsides, ignoring the competition for jobs, the threat to the unions, and problems of assimilation.
Indeed, Left Voice's position can only be held by a bunch of college professors, whose connections to the real world are sufficiently tenuous that they can't even imagine how it could fail. If deporting millions of immigrants (either in the US or Germany) is both immoral and impractical, then the only alternative is to restrict the flow of incoming illegals.
In other words, Build The Wall! The US has to have control over its southern border.
Both articles (along with the mainstream media) miss another aspect of immigration: consumption. Immigrants not only take jobs, but they also buy things and are consumers. As consumers, they create jobs. The short-term problem arises when they first arrive: they're either not allowed to work, or they're so far in the financial hole that they can't consume as much as they earn. That's why the perception (not entirely inaccurate) is that they "steal jobs." In the long run, they don't. They just grow the economy.
The biggest consumers in any society are families with children. That obvious insight leads to this hierarchy of which immigrants to admit, listed from most desirable to least desirable:
- A pregnant woman with husband in tow--the child will grow up in the US, will speak fluent English, and the husband will earn a living for his family. Hopefully they'll have more children.
- A woman with one or more children, again with husband in tow--still good, but the children will be less likely to assimilate depending on how old they are upon arrival. The husband remains a financial necessity.
- A husband and wife--here's hoping they have children.
- A single woman--likely children in her future. Hope she finds a husband.
- A single mother--at least there are kids, but her financial prospects are not good and she's likely to end up on welfare.
- Unattached males--these are the guys who are gonna paint swastikas on synagogues, or join street gangs, or generally make a nuisance of themselves. They should not be admitted unless they have marketable skills in short supply.
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