The U.S. injustice system’s racist treatment of undocumented workers, intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic, is proof of the necessity of organizing society without borders and exploitation.
In its desperation to intimidate, criminalize and build racism against undocumented workers, 110,100 have been imprisoned by the U.S. Government since March 2020.  The dangerous conditions inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement concentration camps, made much more so by the pandemic, led to hunger strikes by 2,500 detainees nationwide from last March to July. Recently detainees at three northern NJ prisons, where NY detainees are also sent - Essex, Hudson, and Bergen County Jails – have struck to protest their continued endangerment.
According to a report published by The Detention Watch Network, as of August 2020, the rate of Covid-19 infections identified by ICE, is over 13 times that of the general population, despite sparse testing.
As of December 23, ICE admitted to 73 cases in two New Jersey jails on strike. At least two deaths have been recorded at the Essex County Detention Center. And even those numbers are low since anyone who leaves a facility to be released or deported or transferred is no longer counted.    
In a dorm of 48, no masks allowed
In an interview with an imprisoned worker at Essex County, he said prisoners live in crowded 48-person dormitories and are not allowed to wear masks. He never had a Covid-19 test. In some medical visits, his temperature was not even taken. He also developed a serious heart rhythm problem that requires hospital treatment, but he was only seen by the on-site MD, who gave him a medicine contraindicated by his asthma and never saw him again. The diagnosis subsequently disappeared from his record. For participating in the December strike, the administration transferred him to faraway Buffalo, NY detention.
It is estimated that ICE detention centers have been responsible for 245,000 Covid-19 cases throughout the country (CNN, 12/11/20), by virtue of the high infection rate among staff who come and go from the community as well as detainees who are released undiagnosed. Moreover, hundreds of deportees have tested positive for Covid-19, including over 330 in Guatemala (Arizona Republic, 10/28/20). The U.S. capitalist government has no concern for workers’ health anywhere.
Only crime? Being a super-exploited worker
The major crime for which undocumented workers are arrested is the crime of existing as an undocumented worker. Some are arrested during a routine traffic stop (ProPublica, 4/2/18). Immigrants, documented and undocumented, make up 17.4 percent of the workforce (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5/29/20). They toil in laborious jobs like agriculture, meat packing, home health, construction, and many low-wage service jobs.
While the bosses criminalize workers for conditions their profit-system created, they get away with the biggest crime of all—super-exploitation and racist state terror. The profiteers celebrate their mechanism to divide workers against one another—white versus Black, Latin, and Asian—citizen versus undocumented—a way to keep all workers down. What capitalist profiteers get is hundreds of millions of dollars paid to private prison owners who house 70 percent of detainees, like GEO and Corrections Corporation of America. Municipalities like Hudson County and Essex County, NJ rake in near $120 per day for each prisoner through contracts with ICE (Patch, 1/6).  
Biden, enemy of workers
Some hope that all will change with president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris.
Remember—it was under Democrats in 1996 that mandatory detentions and expedited removal of immigrants were written into law. It was under the Obama and Biden administration that over three million immigrants were deported, more than in all previous administrations combined, and family detentions escalated.  Furthermore, while the Obama administration deported 1.18 million people in his first three years, the number of deportations has been a little under 800,000 so far under Trump” (The Hill, 11/18/19). Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are friends of the working class.
Biden represents different interests than the Small Fascists. It is the economic and international peril of U.S. imperialism that dictates what we really can expect of any administration. As the U.S. position’s in the world declines and is flooded by a capitalist crisis, the Big Fascists’ main task is to ready their society for war and fascism (see glossary, page 6).
Progressive Labor Party is involved in mass actions to free immigrants, like many that have occurred outside the NJ jails. We are in organizations that oppose ICE and its health policies, like Physicians for Human Rights, Cosecha, and DSA Immigration Committee (see page 3). We fight to liberate all workers from the bosses’ criminal system and their racist borders.

Raise hell with radios!
I recently discovered a WBAI radio talk show in New York city called A New Day airing at 7 am when many workers commute to jobs with their cell phones. I was able to get on the air a few times already and got to mention our www.plp.org website.
Recently I got on the air about the Bronx Hunts Point Teamsters strike that was attacked by police. I said:
 Police are the corporate dictatorship’s first budget priority because they break strikes and demonstrations that threaten their bosses’ profits. I was with transit workers who shut the city down for eleven days in 1964 and we won because as the bosses said, ‘You’ve got a gun to our heads’. Workers need to understand their power when united. Teamsters feed the city, they need to organize with transit, hospital, sanitation, service and delivery workers, and the public to build a working-class party to run society.
I think some of our Party members with important struggle experience could get on these many talk shows and bring our Party to workers.
*****
Collectivity versus individualism
The February 3 issue of CHALLENGE had an excellent back page article comparing capitalist individualism/freedom with communist collectivity. But what is this individual freedom and how is it tied so closely to capitalism?
Let’s look at the question of vaccines. Do we all have the individual freedom to choose to get vaccinated? No. Not only is there not enough of a supply but also the distribution has been badly handled by a government mostly interested in protecting big business and their profits. But there could be a much greater supply. Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca are “free” to compete to enter the vaccine market with inferior 70 percent effective vaccines. But for the last two months, they could have already been producing the 95 percent effective vaccines that are already approved.
And facilities in India and South Africa could be producing generic versions of those vaccines. But capitalist production for profit won’t allow production for human needs. For the last two months, workers around the world could have been cooperating on how to get everyone vaccinated much sooner rather than later. Instead, capitalist ideology teaches us to “jump the line” or just use bribery as many rich people are doing. And to justify this individualistic, selfish behavior, we are told it’s human nature.
The CHALLENGE article gives some examples of communist collectivity from China and Russia when they were socialist societies led by communists. Some remnants of that collectivity remain today. But there are numerous examples today of working-class collectivity all around the world. Like most things, collectivity is a class issue.
Capitalists compete and exploit their workers. So they promote individualism and selfishness. Workers fight back and have to stick together just to make any little headway against capitalist exploitation. That’s working-class collectivity.
We see it today with the massive antiracist protests against police murders and with essential workers in hospitals going the extra mile caring for their patients. We see it in the massive recent strikes in India. We see it during wars, disasters, and economic crashes all caused by capitalism. Workers going out of their way to help other workers. We need to develop this working-class collectivity into communist collectivity so we can organize a revolutionary movement to get rid of capitalism once and for all. Join the Progressive Labor Party!
*****
Why call them Big Fascists
Here’s a letter about a discussion our area had about why we call the dominant capitalist wing “the Big Fascists.” I think one of the reasons is because they are the ones who will lead the workers in the U.S. into the next world war.
I wanted to add that the Big Fascists are slicker. The Small Fascists are the open KKK members, Nazis, and Proud Boys. They are very open about their racism which keeps them a little smaller in numbers and more fringe-like.
However, the Big Fascists have their culture and media to build a larger fascist movement. They can get many good people to “fight for freedom,” “fight for democracy,” or “fight for the best government there has ever been.”
Like former U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s famous quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!” It is fascist. Getting lots of workers to think that they are fighting for what is good and merciful when it is really for the power and profits of the capitalist class.
*****
Substitute teacher’s take on capitalist negligence  
I am a substitute teacher in Indianapolis who has worked a total of one month and three days this entire school year due to schools being reopened late due to coronavirus infections and then reclosed again in early November after only being opened previously for a month.
The first school I was assigned to, I regularly worked at before the pandemic. The first day back, it was dangerous. In the Kindergarten class, I had worn masks that were too big, they did not know how to socially distance, the desk partitions were cheap foam, and the children had no understanding of why keeping their masks on was important. The school bosses were not fully prepared. I made up my mind to not take any assignments with K through second grades.
The next assignment  I had was long-term teaching Spanish in another elementary school. This school was a mini superspreader, as some students and staff contracted Covid-19. Every day for a month, I was taking a chance on my life as I have preexisting asthma. The school's leadership was anti-working-class and was sloppy on Covid-19 protocols such as on social distancing with staff and students. The principal was a joke. I was damn lucky I did not contract Covid-19. Meanwhile,  two teachers in metro school districts died from Covid-19.
Shortly before my last day, the school board announced schools would shut back down due to Covid-19 levels being too high.
Covid is a virus of capitalism. Under communism, schools would not be opened during a pandemic, as alternative learning methods will be used. It’s social murder to send teachers, support staff, and students to die in these schools.
HHHHH
CHALLENGE response:  We can all agree that the bosses’ schools are unsafe. School reopening is a lose-lose dilemma for our class. Remote learning treats students’ minds as expendable while in-person learning treats students’ safety as expendable. Either way, there is no regard for health, mental, or physical. Is the choice to stop working in those schools pro-worker? It might be helpful to think about essential workers and how it represents an impossible choice for them, too. The working class has never had it easy.
There is no returning to safe schools under capitalism. Young children, especially Black and Latin, are highly vulnerable to the bosses’ attacks. The students’ minds and health, where you choose to decline assignments, are not disposable. More than learning, schools provide health services, lunch, physical therapy, counseling, and other related services. Calling to keep schools closed “until they are safe” without recognizing this reality, and without genuine planning for student needs, undermines the cause of building working-class solidarity. As communists and members of the working class, we must be a part of the struggle. One step is to ask comrades and your co-workers how they are fighting for students during this capitalist crisis.

The insurrection in the U.S. Capitol was no one-off. It marked an explosion of the divisions in the U.S. ruling class that have simmered to a boil—and that point to even bloodier battles in the years to come. As U.S. imperialism spirals into decline and rival imperialists in China are poised to become the world’s top-dog capitalist superpower, the U.S. bosses are falling out like the thieves they are. A subordinate but rising faction, the “America First” wing fronted by Donald Trump, is challenging the liberal finance capitalists who have ruled the globe since World War II.
This split can’t be reconciled by a “democratic” election, the charade the bosses use to perpetuate their capitalist dictatorship. It won’t be healed by Trump’s leaving office in disgrace, or by the inauguration of liberal viper Joe Biden in the armed camp known as Washington, D.C. One side—most likely the finance capital liberals, who still have the upper hand—must smash the other.
In a time of fear, volatility, and a murderously mishandled pandemic, it’s important to remember that the international working class has no dog in this fight. Both wings of the ruling class stand for fascism (see glossary, page 6). Both spell misery and death for the working class. Trump’s Small Fascists are a nest of gutter racists and white nationalists funded by right-wing billionaires who make most of their money within the U.S. The liberal Big Fascists build their mountains of profits from genocidal wars, ruthless international exploitation, and vicious racist inequality.
Pushed to the edge, the finance capital liberals are building fascism with a multiracial cover, a few crumbs for the working class, and the rhetoric of fake compassion. After disciplining their own class, they’ll demand “sacrifice” for their system and enlist workers to die in their next world war. Make no mistake, the Big Fascists are no lesser evil. As they grow more desperate, they will stop at nothing.
We live in a period with only two roads. One is imperialist war and full-blown fascism. The other is communist revolution. The task of Progressive Labor Party is to build a revolutionary communist movement to smash capitalism once and for all.
Small Fascists make inroads
Contrary to the myth of a grass-roots movement of alienated white workers, the Small Fascists are orchestrated and financed by the likes of the super-rich Koch and Mercer and DeVos families. A new group with deep pockets, the anti-tax and anti-regulation Club for Growth, “has emerged as one of the biggest backers of the Republican lawmakers who sought to overturn the U.S. election results” (The Guardian, 1/16). Assured of this financial support, 147 Republican members of Congress spit in the finance capital’s face and challenged Biden’s election the day after the Capitol attack. Nearly two hundred of them voted against impeaching Trump for inciting it.  
The January 6 siege revealed the Small Fascist infiltration of the U.S. military and police forces around the country. Local police chiefs are turning their own people into the FBI (Washington Post, 1/16). Fearful of rogue elements in their ranks, the military was forced to conduct fresh background checks on National Guard troops sent to D.C. to safeguard the inauguration (defenseone.com 1/16).
Big Fascists are the main danger
For the first time, as the Small Fascist loyalists tried to disrupt the presidential election and kidnap and assassinate the opposition leadership, the U.S. ruling class was unable to impose a peaceful transition of power. Exposed and humiliated, the Big Fascist finance capitalists are struggling to regain control. Dozens of companies, including Marriott International, Dow, Airbnb, and Morgan Stanley, declared an end to donations to any member of Congress who voted to block Biden’s victory (New York Times, 1/11). Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a shameless opportunist who walked in lock step with Trump for the last four years, is now blaming the ex-president for the Capitol attack and suggesting he might support an impeachment conviction.
History shows that in periods of crisis, capitalists need to build fascism to survive. Since the pro-war liberals are best positioned to win the battle within the U.S. ruling class, they pose the greatest danger. The Big Fascists’ response to 9/11, beyond the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, was to pass the Patriot Act. It created massive surveillance and a militarized police state that continues to terrorize mainly Black, Latin, and Muslim workers (Inthesetimes, 6/17/2020). Flash forward to Jim Crow Joe Biden and “Top Cop” Kamala Harris and their plan to unveil a domestic terrorism bill. While their immediate target may be the Small Fascist militias, the main wing bosses will ultimately use it against Black working-class leaders and antiracists.
To preserve their hold on power, the Big Fascists’ strategy is to build a multiracial fascist movement. As Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the leading Big Fascist think tank, recently wrote: [I]f America’s differences are not to be the country’s undoing, more young Americans must meet and work together with those of other classes, colors, religions, and backgrounds' (foreignaffairs.com, 1/11).
Haass’s solution? A new system of voluntary national service—a first step toward a compulsory draft for the coming war with China.
Drive toward war accelerates
Over the long term, the intensifying U.S. civil war can only benefit the Chinese ruling class, which looks increasingly stable and strong by comparison. As the world’s regional bosses are forced to choose sides, many of them—especially in Africa, the fastest-growing economy in the world—are looking more and more toward China.
“Signs of this are already evident in...the European Union’s investment treaty with China [and] the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade bloc in Asia” (foreignaffairs.com, 1/12). As the U.S. finance capitalists see their empire imploding, they have a powerful incentive to go to war before it’s too late.
The future can be shaped by our class
With the rulers sharpening their long knives against one another, there’s one big unanswered question: How will workers respond to the movement toward war and fascism? The greatest danger for our class is that a large section of workers will be terrorized into running into the arms of the Big Fascists. But we cannot forget that Biden, Pelosi, and the rest are the same racists who generated the 1994 mass incarceration crime bill (authored by Biden himself), mass impoverishment welfare reform, and countless coups and wars that have slaughtered millions of workers around the world.
We call on workers to reject the liberal bosses and their sham democracy with the same force that they reject open fascists like Trump. The solution to smashing the fascist menace is communism, a state run by and for workers. As a class and as a communist party, we must build a revolutionary movement to destroy capitalism once and for all. Join Progressive Labor Party!

CHICAGO, January 20—“FREE THEM ALL! DROP THE CHARGES!” This was the main rallying cry heard in front of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse as over a dozen antiracist fighters braved freezing temperatures outside. Today marked the date of a court hearing for an antiracist fighter who was among the thousands attacked and charged by the racist capitalist state for their participation in a militant rebellion last year.
For nearly an hour, we led chants, gave short speeches, and picketed in front of the stairs leading into the bosses’ racist criminal injustice center. Members of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) helped lead chants, held up anti-capitalist banners, and shared copies of CHALLENGE newspaper. Many drivers and workers passing by honked their horns or raised their fists in support.
Our rally today took on an even wider significance given that it was the inauguration of the latest fascist-in-chief, U.S. President Joe Biden. Those of us in PLP made it clear that no matter who holds the reins of power in the capitalist system, the attacks on our class are bound to continue. In the wake of the Donald Trump-led Small Fascist wing of the U.S. ruling class storming the Capitol building, the splits among the bosses and the racist contradictions of the system have been made even more apparent.
PLP has been honored to fight alongside our class within these worker and student-led struggles. The solidarity and collectivity shown in these fights, no matter the size, is what gives our class the confidence and training that we need to ultimately run an egalitarian communist world in the masses’ collective interest.
The struggle expands
The newly created Chicago Activist Defense Committee (CADC) organized the action today. What originally started as an initiative to support Black artist/worker Jeremey “Mohawk” Johnson (see previous CHALLENGEs) after his arrest by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) during an anti-racist demonstration last August has grown into a wider network to support all those attacked by the capitalist state, citywide.
Adding more fuel to our fire is the clear racist double standard that was on display during the Capitol building siege on January 6th (see editorial on page 2). A mob of mainly white racists quickly overrun scant security forces and were allowed free reign to livestream their mayhem. To date, approximately 100 of those who participated have been arrested and face charges, compared to at least 3000 who were arrested in Chicago alone for fighting back against the racist murder of George Floyd.
As one CADC member put it, “A Black woman was shot to death for driving too close to the White House and our protests are met with extreme violence just for standing in the street and speaking out.” Racist terror and exploitation are ingrained in this capitalist system!
Fight for a system that serves workers
One PL’er concluded, “We fight today to get our comrades freed and their charges dropped, but we must have no illusions that this capitalist legal system exists to serve us.” We must continue fighting and winning others to defend and protect ourselves not only in the present, but also to build the mass PLP which represents the only force that can free us from the racist and sexist misery of capitalism. Let’s keep fighting!