The following letter was sent by a worker from Arlington, Texas, in support of the Socialist Equality Party’s call for the establishment of workplace and neighborhood committees in defense of immigrants and democratic rights. For assistance building a committee in your location, fill out the form below.

Fellow workers:

The first month of the Trump administration has seen a massive attack on immigrants across the country. Trump has declared the migration of people across the Southern border a foreign invasion and authorized the deployment of the military to the border. Preparations are underway to build 100,000 beds at detention centers, including 30,000 at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, and Trump has discussed deporting US citizens opposed to his regime to an El Salvadoran prison. 

These attacks on immigrants must be understood in the context of Trump and Musk’s assault on social services and the drive towards dictatorship.

On February 17 Trump issued an executive order declaring that all federal agencies are subject to his control, barring any independent agency to interpret the law and issue regulations. This is a blatant act of despotism, attacking the constitutional mandate for the separation of powers. 

Elon Musk has now also hacked various government agencies, accessing everyone’s personal information, while embarking on a spree of mass firings across the federal government’s 2.2 million-person workforce. He and Trump are embarking on a wrecking mission to dismantle social services, regulations and constitutional forms of rule on the path to establishing a presidential dictatorship. 

And while Trump has made overtures to peace in Ukraine, he has demanded the country hand over its natural resources and referred to annexing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal by force. Trump’s imperialist ambitions abroad require a war at home against the “enemy within,” that is, the working class.

As Trump has steered the Republican Party towards blatant fascism, the Democratic Party has consistently failed to combat Trump’s authoritarianism. The Democratic Party refused to effectively oppose Trump’s January 6 coup attempt, allowing him to run for reelection, while Biden declared he supported a “strong Republican Party.”

Now that Trump has returned to power, the Democrats have rolled over, allowing Trump and Musk free reign to wreck social services and attack immigrants. Several Democrats even provided key votes to pass the Laken Riley Act, which allows local police to collaborate with ICE to deport immigrants for even minor criminal offenses. 

While the Democrats sow illusions in lawsuits and court orders, Trump is ignoring any restraints on his authority, declaring that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” The social force capable of opposing fascism is not the decaying legal order but we, the working class. We produce all the value in society that social parasites like Musk feed off of and must exercise our own independent power to defend immigrants, democratic rights and our jobs.  

Our community is one of a diverse working class. Not only is Arlington ethnically diverse—with a population that is 23 percent black, 31 percent Hispanic and 8 percent Asian—more than one in five residents of our community are foreign-born. Trump’s attacks will start with our immigrant neighbors, deploying ICE and Border Patrol before his plans to deploy the US military to occupy US cities and round up immigrants. The methods deployed to attack immigrants will then be deployed to suppress the working class at large, assaulting the basic democratic rights of workers to protest and strike. 

Those who were misled into supporting Trump must shed any illusion that his policies can reverse the declining conditions of the American working class. He is ruling openly in the interests of a billionaire oligarchy of which Musk sits atop as the wealthiest man in the world. The passage of tariffs and the deportation of our immigrant neighbors will not fix the runaway cost of living or repair our crumbling infrastructure. They will only serve to divide the working class and boost the wealth of Wall Street and the oligarchy. 

We workers must take up the principle that “an injury to one is an injury to all,” regardless of race, nationality, citizenship or legal status. We will fight to defend our immigrant neighbors and the rights of the working class through these actions and principles:

• Organize networks in our community and workplaces in opposition to attacks on immigrants and democratic rights

• Mobilize lawful action to prevent the detention and deportation of immigrants and political opponents of the Trump regime

• Counter the xenophobic lies about immigrants designed to divide our community and the working class

• Defend federal workers and essential social services like Medicare, Social Security and regulations on big business

• Unify workers independently of the Republicans and Democrats on a program of class struggle against the dictatorship of the oligarchy. 

Only through a program of mass mobilization of the working class to assert its independent interests can we oppose Trump’s attacks on immigrants and prevent the oligarchy’s efforts to smash social services, living standards and democratic rights that generations of workers fought so hard to win. 

We encourage you to join us in building this committee in Arlington and across Texas and the entire country.