Thursday, November 14, 2024
United States
Broad Opposition to Trump Plan to Use Eisenhower Model and Alien Enemies Act
March opposing Trump's
agenda in New York City November 9, 2024
• Broad
Opposition to
Trump Plan to Use Eisenhower
Model
and Alien
Enemies Act
• Huge Public Costs for Criminal Mass
Deportations While
Private Prison Companies Benefit
• Calls in Mexico for U.S. Intervention
United States
Broad Opposition to Trump Plan
to Use
Eisenhower Model
and Alien Enemies Act
Banner at New York City
march, November 9, 2024
Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would use the Eisenhower Model when it comes to deporting millions of people and the Alien Enemies Act when it comes to targeting whoever is deemed to be the "enemy within." The peoples and their organizations will be the focus of these attacks and they are already organizing to resist and defeat these plans.
It is important to look closely at both the Eisenhower Model and the Alien Enemies Act as both are connected with specifically targeting people of Mexican origin, whether citizens, immigrants, documented or undocumented people. They are also specifically linked to increased use of detention camps and the military, and the imposition of federal authority. These are all part of increasing presidential police powers, necessary for preserving the Union and presidential dictate at home and abroad.
The Eisenhower Model, implemented in 1954, involved deportation of what is officially estimated to be about 300,000 people of Mexican origin, many of them citizens, though Eisenhower (34th U.S. president 1953-1961) claimed it was more than a million. The campaign was designed by a retired United States Army lieutenant general who was head of what was then the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It utilized "military-style" tactics in targeting workers and communities along with the promotion of racist slurs, criminalization of workers and efforts to divide people. It was part of the post-World War II efforts by the U.S. to undermine the anti-fascist spirit and international unity that had developed during the war and impose anti-communist loyalty oaths and anti-worker, racist laws.
The history.com website writes that during Eisenhower's campaign, "tens of thousands of immigrants were shoved into buses, boats and planes and sent to often-unfamiliar parts of Mexico, where they struggled to rebuild their lives. In Chicago, three planes a week were filled with immigrants and flown to Mexico. In Texas, 25 per cent of all of the immigrants deported were crammed onto boats later compared to slave ships, while others died of sunstroke, disease and other causes while in custody."
It was also not the first time such raids against people of Mexican origin took place. The U.S. deported more than 1 million Mexican nationals, 60 per cent of them U.S. citizens, during the depression in the 1930s "in a program referred to as repatriation to give it the sense of being voluntary." This too was designed to disrupt the many mass struggles taking place among workers, where these workers played a militant and significant role, as they do today.
Besides the aim of depriving so many people of health care benefits, public resources for their families and work-related pensions, a main reason Mexican Americans are being targeted is precisely because they are in the forefront of many battles for rights. Their revolutionary traditions became evident in recent years in organizing to restore May Day demonstrations which focus on rights, not only in California but elsewhere. Trump is not only targeting undocumented workers but providing means to increase repression and disrupt united actions of all workers and all those standing to defend rights.
Using the Alien Enemies Act Against the People
The Alien Enemies Act specifically allows the president to detain, relocate, or deport, during war-time, non-citizens from a country considered an enemy of the U.S. It was first used in the War of 1812 against the British, which also involved Canada, and in World War I against Germans.
It was amended in 1918 to include women and subsequently used in World War II, mainly against Germans, Italians and Japanese. Thousands were forced to register and were detained, including after the two wars ended.
The Alien Enemies Act stipulates:
"Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government [...] and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies."
While various experts are saying the Act cannot be used because there is no declared war, they ignore that all the wars since WWII have been declared by the president, not Congress and that the U.S.-led "war on terror" launched after 9/11 has been used to claim that this is wartime and involves all countries of the world. As well, the last time the Alien Enemies Act was challenged, in Ludecke v. Watkins in 1948, the Supreme Court upheld President Harry S. Truman's extended reliance on the law three years after the end of World War II. The Court said that the question of when a war terminates, and wartime authorities expire, is too "political" for courts to decide.
The presidential powers concerning wars and utilizing wartime authorities, such as those establishing Guantánamo, defining "enemy combatants," authorizing torture, "kill lists," legitimizing black ops and more are far greater now than in 1948. And as the case of the Guantánamo prison camp has shown, the president can simply ignore Supreme Court rulings, as Obama and those since him have done. A Migrant Detention Center housing Haitians and others including women and children, has already been established at the Guantánamo naval base alongside the prison camp. Since it is not U.S. territory, this Detention Camp also does not fall within the purview of U.S. laws.
The Alien Enemies Act was part of four laws passed known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Sedition Act made it a crime for U.S. citizens to "print, utter, or publish [...] any false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the government. Trials were conducted against journalist and government officials and others. While it is no longer law, given current conditions where the presidency needs to repress the growing resistance and justify attacks on "enemies within," be they journalists, government officials, district attorneys, and so forth, Trump could well use the Alien Enemies Act for similar purposes.
The period when the Act was passed was also a period of uprising and struggles. This included those stemming from the revolutionary spirit among the people for independence and rights that required the ruling elite of the day to include the Bill of Rights in the Constitution (1787). In the U.S. and internationally, many struggles of the workers were also taking place at that time, as well as the Haitian revolution and Irish uprising for freedom from British rule.
The Bill of Rights speaks to freedom of religion, press, speech, association and petitioning the government. It is to disrupt the resistance movements today and brand them and those who participate in them as "foreign" or "alien," to be brutally crushed, that the Alien Enemies Act is again being invoked.
Broad resistance is already being organized to block deportations and defend the many protesters already in action for Palestine, in support of immigrants, migrants and refugees, and all those standing for rights.
New York City, November
9, 2024
(Voice of Revolution,
U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization)
Huge Public Costs for Criminal Mass Deportations While Private Prison Companies Benefit
Organizations across the United States are expressing their outrage at the human cost of mass deportations, for the individuals, families and communities involved, and the massive public funds required. The private prison companies are crowing about their "unprecedented opportunity" to grab up guaranteed government funding to build and manage the big increased need for detention camps.
The two main private prison corporations, GEO Group and CoreCivic, are already benefiting from government plans for mass deportation of an estimated 13 million people. The process for many of the workers facing possible deportation will be first detention and then deportation. It is also likely many will be indefinitely detained and held for use as enslaved labour, in the detention camps, in agriculture, various state-related work like laundry, license plates, etc. – much like the enslaved labour of prisoners.
Many of these camps are already run by the two private companies. With Trump's election, GEO Group's stock surged more than 56 per cent from the close of trading on Election Day, to the closing bell on Friday, November 8. CoreCivic's shares skyrocketed 57 per cent over the same period. By contrast, in the three months preceding Election Day, GEO Group stock saw a 21 per cent rise. CoreCivic stock rose 11 per cent over the same period.
The federal government works with county jails and contracts with the private sector, mainly these two companies, to build, operate and manage the majority of detention facilities. Only a small number of detention beds are in federally owned facilities.
Currently Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains more than 36,600 people in a network of more than 200 immigration detention camps across the country. This year, Biden signed a federal spending bill that increases funding for ICE to maintain an average daily population of 41,500 people in detention which provides the highest level of funding for custody and surveillance operations in ICE's history. Clearly, when talking about detaining and deporting millions of people, these detention facilities must greatly expand. There is also talk about using currently empty military bases as well as expanding the existing Guantánamo detention camp.
Map of current
immigration detention centres and public/private ownership.
It has been well-documented, including by Congressional investigations, that conditions in the existing camps are more like concentration camps. There are widespread abuses from torture and medical neglect, including deaths, forced sterilization and rape, sexual assault of children, malnourishment and more.
The total cost for even one million deportations will be staggering. According to ICE, in 2016, the average cost of apprehending, detaining, processing and removing one undocumented immigrant from the United States was $10,900. Given inflation and costs for expanding the detention camps, staffing them, increased ICE staffing and more, it is estimated that removal of one million people each year for 10 years would cost about $1 trillion.
Such criminal attacks on workers and their families, and criminal use of public funds, are widely denounced with many raising the demand to close all detention camps, stop funding war and detention and fund the rights of the peoples!
Calls in Mexico for U.S. Intervention
The senator and leader of the opposition National Action Party (PAN) in the Mexican Congress, Marko Cortés, proposed to classify drug trafficking as "terrorism." He also requested that international institutions (meaning from the U.S.) "collaborate" to eliminate the terror that communities in Mexico contend with.[1]
These calls are not new. Three years ago, PAN senator Lilly Tellez presented a reform initiative that would require that members of drug trafficking cartels, who use violence and cause alarm, fear or terror among the Mexican population, be prosecuted for the crime of terrorism.[2] This position follows the line of Mexico's military integration into the U.S. military and subjugation of its sovereignty to that country initiated by Presidents Fox and Calderón.
In the United States, weapons are produced which are then exported and sold to Mexico and in Mexico. In Mexico, drug money and money from the sale of illegal weapons is laundered and drugs are distributed throughout the territory. All of this is done, according to official sources, without the existence of any U.S. cartel, just Mexican cartels. This is how they justify military intervention in the entire continent. For this purpose, they have the Northern Command (Northcom) and the Southern Command (Southcom), in addition to their many intelligence agencies.
In a hearing before the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee in 2022, Northcom Commander General Glen VanHerck emphasized that drug trafficking, migration and human trafficking are "symptoms of a larger problem.... and that is transnational criminal organizations." He added that "the instability they generate... offers opportunities for actors like China, like Russia, and others who could have nefarious activities in mind, to seek access and influence in our area of responsibilities from a national security perspective."[3]
A year later, in early 2023, Congressmen Dan Crenshaw and Mike Waltz, two Republicans from Texas and Florida respectively, introduced the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUFM) Resolution "on cartel influence." In language that echoes the 2001 broad authorization for the use of military force in response to the 9/11 attacks, the legislation purports to empower the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against "foreign nations, foreign organizations, or foreign persons affiliated with foreign organizations."
In this way, the U.S. president determines whether someone has committed specific drug-related crimes or used violence to control territory for illicit purposes.[4] Recall that during his first administration, in November 2019, then President Donald Trump announced that the proposal was under consideration. Echoing Trump this September and since, Crenshaw and others in Congress have said the U.S. is “at war” with the drug cartels and called for use of the military in Mexico.
In 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott proposed labeling cartels and migrant smugglers as terrorists. Later, on March 10, 2023, 21 state attorneys general asked Biden to do the same.
On March 29 of last year, Lindsey Graham, senator for South Carolina and staunch Trump supporter, presented an initiative to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. The proposal is yet another example of U.S. insistence that Mexico intervene more prominently in the fight against armed groups. Crenshaw, Graham and other Trump backers threaten that unless Mexico does more, U.S. military intervention will take place, including drones and troops.
General Michael Guillot, a member of the U.S. Air Force who has served as commander of Northcom, stated on March 13 of this year that the cartels are more willing to confront Mexican security forces; that irregular migration has reached record levels in the last year; and that violence related to the fight between rival cartels for control of drug and migrant trafficking is on the rise. As a consequence, this generates instability and challenges to the rule of law, he said.
All of this fuels the idea of the necessity for U.S. armed intervention to "help fight organized crime."
On June 29, 2024, General VanHerck concluded a visit to Mexico. According to U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar, during his visit he met with federal government officials to discuss issues related to bilateral security cooperation. He met with the Secretaries of National Defense and of the Navy, Luis Crescencio Sandoval and Rafael Ojeda, respectively, at the official residence of Salazar, who published a photograph of the meeting on social media. In it, the three military men appear in civilian clothes.
"Operational military compatibility is built through lasting relationships and combined training opportunities with you!" the Northcom general said on social media after the meeting.
The joint protocols and processes involving the U.S. and Mexican armed forces are linked. The Pentagon receives strategic data from the Mexican Army, in addition to selling it technology and equipment on a preferential basis.
Since 2014, Mexico has participated in the Tradewinds military exercises, which have been conducted by Southcom since 1984, following the U.S. invasion of Grenada and in the face of "threats from the then Soviet Union and Cuba."
These annual exercises have a multinational and multi-domain collaborative approach; they involve land, air, maritime, amphibious and cybersecurity scenarios.
And, for the first time, from May 7 to 21, 2022, Mexico co-hosted the Tradewinds exercises with Belize. On that occasion, the manoeuvres were held on Mexican territory: in Chetumal, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen.
Mexican military commanders were also present on May 24, 2023 in Panama, at a police academy in the capital city. On this occasion, the head of Southcom, General Laura Richardson, warned of the need to unite to confront the "threats against democracies" from "autocratic governments."
The event took place at the closing of joint military maneuvers, in which military and special forces participated from about 20 countries of the Americas participated; among them, the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Richardson stated that the democracy team "is a powerful team working across the board to ensure a free, secure and prosperous Western Hemisphere."[5] This statement is an open call for military forces to undertake coups against what the U.S. calls "dictatorships." This of course refers to any progressive government in Latin America and the Caribbean.
On December 2, 2023, on the occasion of the bicentennial of the Monroe Doctrine, Richardson had called for again implementing the Doctrine to secure Latin America's resources. She also spoke of the importance of "providing assistance" to the South American and Caribbean region in light of its "infinite and strategic natural resources." She pointed out that Latin America and the Caribbean have "oil, 50 percent of the world's soybeans, 30 percent of sugar, meat and corn come from this region."
She also highlighted the need to rival the contracts that China has concluded with South American countries. "It is time to act," she said, pointing to the objective of the United States to recover hemispheric leadership in the face of its "strategic Asian competitor."
In expressing interest in the region's natural resources, the head of Southcom has expressed particular interest in "the lithium triangle: Argentina, Bolivia and Chile," as well as in "Venezuela's oil, copper and gold," and "the lungs of the world: the Amazon" which holds "31 percent of the planet's fresh water."
At the South American Defense Conference, Southdec 2022, held in Quito with the presence of the heads of defense of 11 countries of the region, Richardson warned about the "threat" that China allegedly poses in the region, in terms of the environment, cybersecurity and political destabilization. She also declared that the Asian country continues to support "authoritarian" regimes in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
Richardson once again emphasized the need to fight transnational crime and drug trafficking with coordinated work among the countries of the region.[6] She spoke as if it were a matter of organizing a "soccer team" where each player is assigned a certain position. What she did not say is that the United States is the technical director and owner of this "team."
Continuing U.S. domination and interference in Latin America and the Caribbean is clear. This situation begins with Mexico, as can be seen by the role of the PRI opposition party when it was in power, used as a spearhead for the submission of Mexico to Washington's hegemonic interests.
The Mexican people on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border are conscious of the need to thwart the Yankee empire's plans in our land, under the pretext of "helping to fight organized crime and terror." Mexicans do not hesitate to defend their sovereignty against the plans of their aggressive northern neighbour.
Notes
1. Infobae, October 2024
2. Infobae, July 2021
3. Proceso, March 2022
4. Ibero, February 2023
5. France, May 2024
6. CNN en
español September 2022
(Translated from original Spanish by TML.)
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Website: www.cpcml.ca • Email: editor@cpcml.ca