In preparations for wider, global war to maintain their world domination, Obama and U.S. rulers need liberal fascism: to sharply attack workers while trying to win us to their side. Domestically, they need slave labor for their war industries and tens of million of soldiers for their imperialist battlefields. Spurred by the deepening economic crisis and stiffer competition from other imperialists and regional bosses, they want to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill to achieve these aims, using millions of undocumented workers.

They’ve been pursuing two roads simultaneously: terroristic immigration raids and a lengthy road to legalization. Fascistic raids can terrorize immigrants into accepting super-exploitation, driving immigrants into the arms of the rulers’ politicians, patriotism and elections as a “solution.”

A NY Times editorial (2/1) attacked “Nativists” or open anti-immigrant racists: “Americans want immigration solved, and they realize that mass deportations will not do that.” Meanwhile, they praise the  “rule of law” (bosses’ law), a call which liberal immigrants’ rights leaders adopted, accepting fascist immigration reform rules making legalization a long, expensive process, as the lesser evil to open racism. But they’re really two sides of the same coin.

The top imperialists’ “we-love-immigrants” line means low wages and cannon fodder for war, along with U.S. citizen workers. Another NY Times editorial attacked the Minutemen and called for “accepting” immigrants. A series on immigrants notes the growing numbers of immigrants and the importance of schools in teaching them “American” values.

So, despite the economic crisis, these bosses in their media champion this Bill, while portraying the 12 million undocumented workers and immigrants in general in a favorable light. They also use their past and present high-ranking fascistic officials and politicians to echo this call.

Obama and Biden toe the bosses’ line on immigration “reform.” They “Support a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.” (Whitehouse.gov, 1/21, 2009)

Janet Napolitano, Obama’s  Department of Homeland Security Secretary and new chief of ICE (immigration police), said (2007 Washington Post op-ed) : “Don’t label me soft on illegal immigration…. [I] supervised the prosecution of more than 6,000 immigration felonies [as Arizona Attorney General] and I govern a state where, in 2005, there were 550,000 apprehensions of ‘illegal’ immigrants.” In 2006, she sent the National Guard to the border to attack undocumented workers.

Meanwhile, Napolitano has criticized construction of the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and urged Congress to pass the June 2007 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill. In January 2008, Napolitano called for enhanced border security and said the U.S. should crack down on employers who hire “illegal” immigrants. She also advocated a path to citizenship for “illegal” immigrants now here.

Michael Chertoff, Former Homeland Security Secretary — who, as head of ICE, terrorized the immigrant community, deporting 350,000 undocumented workers nationwide in 2008 alone — also lobbied Congress in 2007 for the immigration reform bill that failed to pass. In a recent interview on the impact of the economic crisis on immigration reform, he said it’s needed to be ready when the economy becomes vibrant again because the U.S. will need “some more workers coming from other parts of the world…” (CFR.org, Council on Foreign Affairs website, 3/16/2009).

With Chertoff’s remarks about a “vibrant economy” and the media’s platitude about “hard-working undocumented workers,” these liberal bosses try to hide their “covenant with death” in preparation for global war and fascism.

The slave-labor conditions imposed on immigrant workers are becoming widespread in industry as the bosses also force citizen workers to accept layoffs, lower wages and more fascistic working conditions. PLP fights for unity of citizen and immigrant workers against racist unemployment, immigration raids and laws that mean indentured servitude and a military draft. We also fight harassment, speed-up and slave-labor working conditions.

Racism against immigrant, black and Latino workers is the cutting edge of the bosses’ attacks on all workers. We fight to unite the working class against racism, to abolish the bosses’ borders with communist revolution. In a communist society, all workers will be welcomed and needed to work and fight for the interests of the international working class.