Here are the facts
“Im/migrants are taking our jobs” is a huge lie
Immigrants do not have the power to hire and fire. Bosses and billionaires are laying off workers. This year alone, bosses announced 497,052 cuts to workers’ jobs.
This year has marked the highest number of job cuts since the first quarter of 2009, when 578,510 layoffs were announced. The lion’s share of these losses — approximately 60,000 — has resulted from firings and layoffs within the public sector ordered by Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
As reported by the Challenger Report, “It is up 93% from the 257,254 cuts announced during the same period in 2024 and an increase of 227% from the 152,116 cuts announced in the previous quarter.”
Not a single im/migrant is responsible for job or service cuts; they are not stripping and dismantling Social Security or Medicaid, or announcing mass layoffs in the high-tech and retail industries.
‘Im/migrants don’t pay taxes,’ another lie
Every time any worker, regardless of their citizenship status, buys clothing, gas, and other necessities, they can be taxed. Every paycheck is taxed. Who doesn’t pay taxes: the richest man on the earth, Elon Musk, and a bunch of other crooks who depend on government handouts like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Silicon Valley oligarch Peter Thiel, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, the Waltons who own Walmart, and dozens of other billionaires..
Not a word is muttered about the war profiteers who have sucked tax payers dry or the bottomless giveaways of bombs and military equipment to Israel to commit genocide of the Palestinian people.
There are so many more lies and half-truths to debunk, like why does anyone leave their beloved home and familiar life behind to take a death-threatening trip to migrate? We will save that for another time, but let’s get to the big question.
Why is Donald Trump, and for that matter, a lot of others, whipping up anti-immigrant fear?
The reason isn’t that different from the reason that racism and anti-transgender bigotry are being pushed and trumpeted.
Of course, Donald Trump, his MAGA supporters, and most of the billionaires and bankers, even if it’s behind closed doors, actually believe the most vehemently racist things about Black and Brown people. And this includes their personal views of immigrants.
However, the deeper reason, and the reason that none of their ultra-rich so-called elite colleagues object, is that it is profitable for their bottom line. The game is to distract, shift the blame, and scapegoat groups with the least power.
By dividing and distracting workers, they can rob the entire working class, cut services, destroy our unions, and make it difficult to fight back. The end game is to create a pool of desperate and poor workers willing to work for the lowest possible wage, foregoing benefits.
This is profitable for big business and banks, especially during a recession, whether they are willing to declare a recession or not, and during a general capitalist contraction. The capitalist system and the capitalists themselves are driven to increase exploitation or toward destruction through war.
The result of the terror war on im/migrants is already apparent in Florida, where the legislature is proposing rolling back child labor laws to push younger workers into undocumented workers’ jobs.
In the final analysis, all of us are im/migrants with the exception of Indigenous people whose land was stolen and Black people whose ancestors were ripped from Africa and enslaved. The antidote for hate and division is unity and solidarity. Reject the anti-immigrant propaganda and unite to stop capitalist robbery. Defend all of our lives.
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