With the start of Donald Trump’s second term, we face once again widespread dehumanization of migrants, mainstream calls for mass deportations, and rising racism and nativism. In just the first week of his administration, Trump has issued executive orders declaring a national emergency and sending over a thousand troops to the US-Mexico border, reinstituting the “remain in Mexico” policy blocking legal asylum claims, and seeking to end birthright citizenship. Under his direction, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has started to conduct raids across the country.
Though fear and worry are spreading, it is important to remember that this is not the first time we have faced this threat. DSA’s newly formed International Migrant Rights Working Group (IMRWG) builds on a legacy of socialists supporting international and anticapitalist migrant struggles and fighting against organized border imperialism and mass deportation.
Eighty-five years ago Guatemalan-American labor organizer and socialist Luisa Moreno delivered her now-famous “Caravans of Sorrow” speech to the Fourth Annual Conference of the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign Born in Washington, D.C. In her speech, she decried the government-sponsored “repatriation” campaigns of the early and mid 1930s, which had led to up to one million Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American citizens being forcibly or “voluntarily” (at the end of much coercion and racism) deported to Mexico. At the time, local and federal officials, and even some labor leaders, such as the American Federation of Labor, called for this mass removal, claiming that Mexicans were stealing jobs from citizens and creating social problems. Moreno challenged these claims, showing that the U.S. economy, especially in the Southwest, had been built on the backs of migrants. She pointed to the real villains, the agribusiness companies exploiting migrants to get rich. Moreno stated:
“What would the Imperial Valley, the Rio Grande Valley, and other rich irrigated valleys in the Southwest be without the arduous, self-sacrificing labor of these noncitizen Americans? . . . Has anyone counted the miles of railroads built by these same noncitizens? One can hardly imagine how many bales of cotton have passed through the nimble fingers of Mexican men, women, and children. And what conditions have they had to endure to pick that cotton? . . . These people are not aliens. They have contributed their endurance, sacrifices, youth, and labor to the Southwest. Indirectly, they have paid more taxes than all the stockholders of California’s industrialized agriculture, the sugar beet companies and the large cotton interests that operate or have operated with the labor of Mexican workers. Surely the sugar beet growers have not been asked if they want to dispense with the skilled labor cultivating and harvesting their crops season after season. It is only the large interests, their stooges, and some badly misinformed people who claim that Mexicans are no longer wanted.”
Moreno fought against mass removals and migrant exploitation on multiple fronts. She was an organizer for the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, a union chartered by the Congress of Industrial Organizations that organized many Mexican, Asian, and black women in canning and food processing. Moreno also co-founded (with several other Latina communists) the Congress of Spanish Speaking Peoples (El Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Español), one of the first leftist Latinx and immigrant rights organizations, as part of a broader popular front against racial and capitalist fascism in the US.
As we face the most recent rise of nativist campaigns for mass removal, DSA’s IMRWG, newly reformed in 2024, is drawing from this and more recent struggles for socialist internationalism and migrant justice. Over the last year, the IMRWG has been bringing together seasoned organizers from previous immigrant rights campaigns across DSA with new organizers and chapters. We’ve been reaching out to national immigrant justice organizations to create an anti-imperialist and abolitionist movement against borders and for freedom for immigrants.
The IMRWG was reformed in the summer of 2024 as the Biden administration reinstituted Trump’s asylum bans and as congressional Democrats pushed for a draconian border bill, which was eventually scuttled by Republicans at the command of Trump. Members of the International Committee, the Abolition Working Group, and the former DSA Immigrant Rights Working Group wrote a “Statement on Migration and International Solidarity Between Working People” that was approved by NPC in August.
In the fall, the group organized a “Solidarity Across Borders” webinar series that featured four interconnected discussions on border and migration issues. Session 1, “Understanding Border Imperialism,” featured activist and scholar Aviva Chomsky speaking about how U.S. imperialism and neoliberal capitalism fuels migration. In the second session, Marcela Hernandez from the organization Detention Watch Network connected migration to abolition, speaking about the importance of “Resisting Mass Incarceration and Migrant Detention.” Session 3, titled “Resisting the International Reach of the ICE/CBP Agenda,” brought Margerita Nuñez from the Colective de Monitoreo in Mexico to speak about how the U.S. immigration enforcement regime is extended throughout Mexico and Central America. In the fourth and final session, Valeria Ramirez, David Abud, and Brandon Mancilla, members of DSA’s National Labor Commission, spoke about the need to resist exploitation and build organized labor power among migrant communities. In addition to these political education efforts, the IMRWG also coordinated with YDSA and the Cornell grad union in a successful campaign to fight the expulsion from Cornell of DSA-member and migrant Momodou Taal.
Since the 2024 election, the IMRWG has worked with local chapters and the NPC to build a coordinated and sustainable organizing response to Trump’s nativist agenda. Over 150 people joined a post-election strategy call, Defending Migrant Rights in 2025, to strategize about how to fight at the local level against expansion of deportation and detention and for worker’s rights for migrants. At this meeting, the working group launched its organizing support program for chapters, where experienced immigrant rights organizers can coach chapters interested in doing local migrant rights work.
This month, in another mass call on January 12, the working group launched the Defend Migrant Rights Toolkit, another pillar in our efforts to build migrant justice organizing across DSA. In addition to offering tools for power mapping and advice on building coalitions with local migrant rights organizations, the toolkit shares concrete examples and strategies for chapter campaigns and actions such as know-your-rights trainings, ICE watch, and building sanctuary networks. Along with this toolkit, the IMRWG will be launching a coaching program to support a cohort of DSA chapters committed to building local migrant rights organizing projects.
One of our central principles is the importance of working in respectful and productive coalition with the wide variety of organizations in the migrant rights ecosystem, many of whom have decades of experience in local and regional efforts to improve conditions for migrants and building bridges of solidarity between communities across race, language and nationality. We are also committed to organizing against all forms of carceral control, seeing migrant detention as central to broader systems of mass incarceration.
The IMRWG draws on a legacy and present of socialist, internationalist, and coalitional migrant organizing. As Moreno’s organizing history attests, we aim to work intentionally and carefully with multiple organizations, from labor unions to national and international migrant justice organizations. The “large interests” and their stooges are emboldened by Trump’s victory, and they see the chance to exploit and expel migrants even more vehemently.
To help IMRWG defend migrant rights in 2025, sign our individual interest form to get involved with the working group. Chapters should fill out the chapter interest form to schedule a visit from a working group member to a chapter meeting, request a coaching session from an experienced migrant rights organizer, and check out the toolkit for more resources.
Finally, on Tuesday, February 25, join the IMRWG for “Immigration 101: No Human Is Illegal” to learn more about how the immigration system works and how we got to where we are today.