Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Build the Border Wall Back Better?

The Biden administration is hinting that it will pick up building the border wall where Trump left off.

Scott Cooper

April 8, 2021
Facebook Twitter Share
U.S. president Joe Biden stands at a podium in front of a U.S. flag making a speech while pointing his finger.

Joe Biden campaigned for the presidency on a promise. “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1,” he said in an interview last August with reporters from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists. And as a sign of his seriousness, he went even further, committing to a complete halt to land confiscations — something George W. Bush had approved so border fencing could be built, and that had been continued by Barack Obama. “End. Stop. Done. Over. Not going to do it,” declared Biden.

News alert: capitalist politicians lie. They do it repeatedly. They do it at epic levels.

Earlier this week, Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, revealed to department Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees that the Biden administration may restart border wall construction to plug “gaps” in the existing barrier. The secretary said that while Biden has canceled the border “emergency” declared by Donald Trump — the one that had him sending federal troops and diverting funds from other parts of the government to build the wall — doing so “leaves room to make decisions.” Finishing the “gaps” and other renovations is now on the table.

With a new humanitarian crisis at the border, spurred by the imperialist degradation over decades of the countries of Central America, could this be the beginning of a new campaign to seal the southern border? After all, Biden has also been refilling Trump’s cages with migrant children.

Why are people massed at the U.S. southern border? People do not have some innate desire to leave the places of their origin. Nearly all migration in the world is impelled by the need to escape the horrors of exploitation, be it in the form of wars, ethnic strife, economic misery — or all of the above. Capitalism uses borders to enhance its ability to divide and control workers, thereby increasing the rate of exploitation. The revolutionary socialist movement has seen through this for well more than a century.

You might be interested in: Borders and Capitalism: A Socialist Perspective

Borders do nothing to keep people from moving to other countries when they are forced to do so by untenable danger and exploitation at home. Nor do legal restrictions on migration. Instead, they create the sorts of “crises” we have been seeing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Make no mistake: U.S. capitalism is happy to have immigrant workers here — even those without documentation — that can be super-exploited in the fields and food processing plants, to name two sectors that employ many. But they are only welcome on the bosses’ own terms, which means with slave wages, without any rights or protections, and subject to immediate deportation. Having workers here under those conditions is part of the strategy for keeping out unions and pushing down wages.

The working class has no interest whatsoever in limiting migration or closing borders. The people fleeing Central America, huddled in Mexico and waiting to get into this country, are not our enemy. They are our class brothers and sisters, and we share a common enemy: the capitalist class. Our interests are in a united struggle with them to overthrow the system that forces them here in an effort to save their own lives.

What do revolutionary socialists think about borders? We’re for a world without borders.

Facebook Twitter Share

Scott Cooper

Scott is a writer, editor, and longtime socialist activist who lives in the Boston area.

United States

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024
Former president Donald Trump standing at a podium in front of American flags.

To Stop Trump, We Need Much More Democracy, Not Less

Democrats have been trying to kick Trump off the ballot as an "insurrectionist." Liberals say we have to restrict democracy in order to save it. As socialists, we think they have it backwards: to beat the Far Right, we need a mass movement fighting for radical democracy.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 18, 2024

New Jersey Democrats Attack the Public’s Right to Government Records

The New Jersey state assembly, led by the Democratic Party, just tried to fast-track a bill that would have gutted the Open Public Records Act. This is a reminder that their party is an obstacle, not an ally, in the fight to preserve democracy.

Samuel Karlin

March 15, 2024
President Biden giving his State of the Union speech at a podium in March, 2024.

Biden’s State of the Union: Hyper-Nationalism and Eroding Legitimacy

President Biden’s hyper-nationalistic State of the Union speech focused on selling himself as a defender of democracy at home and abroad. But it’s not enough to solve his — and the whole U.S. regime’s — crisis of legitimacy.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 14, 2024

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

Lord Balfour Was an Imperialist Warmonger 

We should give our full solidarity to the Palestine Action comrade who defaced a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University. But the problem for everyone who opposes the genocide against Gaza is how to massify and politically equip the movement.

Daniel Nath

March 21, 2024