Australian stripped of citizenship, setting dangerous precedent

Mike Head 

Sometime earlier this year, alleged Islamic State fighter Khaled Sharrouf became the first Australian to be stripped of citizenship under legislation that the Coalition government pushed through parliament, with the Labor Party’s assistance, at the end of 2015. There was no official announcement, just a leak to Murdoch’s Australian .

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton declined to comment, but his office confirmed that a citizenship was revoked. Dutton reportedly declared Sharrouf’s citizenship void on the advice of a secret panel of intelligence officers, police, bureaucrats and lawyers known as the Citizenship Loss Board.

“National security sources familiar with the move say the decision to target Sharrouf was based on his demonstrated association with Islamic State, a terrorist organisation he joined in 2014,” the Australian reported. In other words, the decision was made on the basis of unreliable intelligence reports. Last year, the intelligence agencies wrongly reported that Sharrouf was one of a number of Australians killed by a US bombing strike in Mosul.

Via this legislation, governments can revoke the citizenships, and therefore basic civil and political rights, by ministerial decree, without any trial or judicial process. These powers go far beyond supposed “terrorist suspects.” They can be used against a range of people deemed to be opponents of the political, corporate and military establishment.

Until 2015, no one’s citizenship could be revoked, unless it was obtained by proven fraud. Now, the government can unilaterally cancel citizenships in three ways.

First, a person is deemed to “renounce by conduct” their citizenship if the immigration minister is “satisfied” that they participated in certain terrorist-linked or “hostile activity” overseas. Second, an individual “ceases” to be a citizen by “fighting for” or “being in the service of” (an undefined term) any organisation listed by the government as terrorist. Third, a person “ceases” to be a citizen if jailed for more than six years for any of a long list of terrorism and politically-motivated offences, including “advocating terrorism,” assisting an “enemy” of Australia, and leaking security information.

Because of the sweeping definition of terrorism in the post-9/11 laws, a person could lose their citizenship, for example, for supporting the right of individuals, whether in Syria or any other country, to resist a US-led invasion.

For now, these powers have been confined to Australia’s more than six million dual citizens—about a quarter of the population—but there have been calls within the Liberal-National Coalition government to extend the measures to all citizens.

By initially targeting Sharrouf, who is reputed to be in Syria or Iraq, the government is continuing a pattern of using individuals who have been demonised by the media to set precedents that threaten the legal and democratic rights of far broader sections of the population.

Sharrouf came to prominence in August 2014, just as the Coalition government confronted widespread opposition to its proposed laws to retain on-line metadata for two years. The corporate media published a gruesome front-page picture, purportedly taken from Sharrouf’s Twitter account, allegedly showing one of his young sons holding the head of a decapitated Syrian soldier. Whatever the exact circumstances of the photo, its broadcast by the media served to whip up anti-Islamic sentiment and beat back opposition to the legislation.

There was no mention in the media barrage of the fact that Islamic State is largely a creation of the US itself and its wars in the Middle East. The conflict in Iraq and Syria, and all its atrocities, which have forced millions of refugees to flee Syria, is the outcome of the drive by the US and its allies since 2011 to overturn the regime of Syrian President Assad. The real aim is to ensure US control over the Middle East and the entire Eurasian landmass, where the US confronts Russia and China.

The US and its partners, including the Saudi and Persian Gulf regimes, turned to Islamic fundamentalist elements to carry out their objectives. In Syria, these forces have been directly funded and backed by Washington and its allies. Having helped create Islamic State, the imperialist powers exploited its existence to justify further military interventions in Libya, Iraq and Syria and deeper attacks on democratic rights at home.

Amid the denunciations of Sharrouf, there was no reference to the economic and social conditions that provide fertile ground for recruitment of vulnerable youth by Islamists. In Australia’s working-class suburbs, young people from Middle Eastern and other immigrant backgrounds face worsening levels of unemployment, poor educational and social facilities and constant police harassment. These conditions often also trigger mental health problems. Sharrouf, 35, who grew up in western Sydney as the son of Lebanese migrants, was diagnosed as a schizophrenic in 2002.

The shocking severed-head image was splashed throughout the media again last February when the government refused to allow into Australia Sharrouf’s six young children and grandchildren after Sharrouf’s wife, Tara Nettleton, died. The children, all of whom are Australian citizens, were trapped in the Islamic State-held Syrian city of Raqqa, which is being bombarded by the US and its allies, including Australia. As a result of the voiding of Sharrouf’s citizenship, their fate is even more perilous.

Sharrouf left Australia in 2013 after completing an almost four-year prison term on vague charges of involvement in an alleged terrorist conspiracy led by a Melbourne cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika. The Benbrika-related trials, conducted in both Melbourne and Sydney, largely relied on evidence by police provocateurs and undercover infiltrators, who incited unstable young men. The defendants were convicted under sweeping provisions, introduced since 2002, that require no proof any specific terrorist target or plot, just vague discussions about “a” possible terrorist act.

The Labor Party was quick to solidarise with the government’s decision on Sharrouf. Mark Dreyfus, the shadow attorney-general, said the legislation was written to strike the right balance between security and citizens’ rights. “We trust this power will continue to be used in sparing and prudent fashion,” Dreyfus said in a statement.

In reality, Labor, no less than the Coalition, is responsible for laws that allow citizens to be stripped of fundamental democratic rights, including to vote, on the basis of untested allegations by intelligence agents and ministerial fiats. This is part of the endless “war on terror,” launched in 2001, that is establishing police state-style laws and powers that will be used more widely as social unrest grows and opposition develops to the escalating turn to war by the US and its partners.

The bizarre murder of North Korean leader’s half-brother

Peter Symonds

The murder of the older half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Malaysia on Monday is surrounded by many unanswered questions and much speculation. While the likely explanation is an assassination organised by North Korean agents, nothing can be ruled out.

According to Malaysian police, Kim Jong-nam, 46, had been at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, intending to fly to Macau, when he was assaulted by a woman who covered his face with a cloth. After reportedly seeking help at an information counter, complaining of pain and stinging eyes, he was taken to hospital and died later.

Malaysian authorities have performed an autopsy and tissue samples are being tested for poisons but no results have been released. The North Korean regime has “categorically rejected” the autopsy results, declaring that it was performed without its permission and its officials in attendance.

South Korean officials immediately blamed Pyongyang, asserting that two North Korean female agents carried out the assassination. Malaysian police have arrested three suspects in the murder—a young Vietnamese woman Doan Thi Huong, an Indonesian woman Siti Aishah, 25, and Siti’s boyfriend.

According to Indonesian police chief Tito Karnavian, Aishah was duped into thinking she was being paid to play a prank for a reality TV show.

The director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), Lee Byong-ho, alleged that Kim Jong-un had, after succeeding his father in 2012, placed a “standing order” to kill his half-brother. The NIS, which is notorious for its own misinformation and dirty tricks, directed particularly against North Korea, claimed to have intercepted a letter by Kim Jong-nam in 2012 pleading for his life.

Media speculation is rife as to why the North Korean leader would want his older half-brother dead, in the first instance putting it down to Kim Young-un’s paranoia and determination to consolidate his rule. He has carried out a brutal purge of the top political and military leadership, including the execution of Jang Song-thaek, his uncle and number 2 in the regime, in December 2012.

Kim Jong-nam, however, had lived abroad for a number of years and reputedly enjoyed the lifestyle of a wealthy playboy. He was born to the first wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and educated in Switzerland and Russia. He apparently fell out of favour after he returned to North Korea and began to advocate “market reforms.”

In an interview with the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun, Kim Jong-nam said: “After I went back to North Korea following my education in Switzerland, I grew further apart from my father because I insisted on reform and market-opening and was eventually viewed with suspicion.”

The North Korean regime is not opposed to pro-market restructuring, however. It has established a number of cheap labour zones, including one used by South Korean corporations at Kaesong until recently. The chief obstacle to its integration into global capitalism has been the diplomatic and economic isolation imposed on North Korea by the US and its allies ever since the Korean War ended in 1953.

Pyongyang has made several attempts to reach a deal with the United States that have collapsed as a result of Washington’s bad faith. In 1994, the Clinton administration, which was on the brink of attacking North Korea militarily, signed an Agreed Framework with North Korea to shut down its nuclear facilities in return for fuel oil, two light water nuclear reactors and steps toward diplomatic recognition.

The Agreed Framework, which raised great hopes of a rapprochement between the two Koreas, was shuttled by the George W. Bush administration, which designated North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq. However, bogged down in the war in Iraq, Bush turned to China to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea’s first nuclear test.

Bush struck a deal in early 2007 through six-party talks instigated by Beijing, which included the two Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan. North Korea shut its nuclear facilities and began the process of dismantling them. Bush took North Korea off the US State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, but sabotaged the agreement by demanding a tougher inspection regime. Even though the Obama administration struck a nuclear deal with Iran, it took no steps toward negotiating with Pyongyang, even as the North Korean regime upped the ante with further nuclear tests and missile launches.

Having come to power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-un confronts the same bind. As the regime has become increasingly isolated and subject to harsher sanctions, it has become more dependent on China, its largest trading partner by far. Beijing, however, has backed UN sanctions as a means of reining in its erratic ally, out of concern that its nuclear tests will trigger a nuclear arms race in North East Asia.

Pyongyang’s relations with Beijing have become increasingly frosty. Kim Jong-un’s execution of his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, resulted in a further cooling of ties. Jang had longstanding connections with Beijing and the accusations against him included “such acts of treachery as selling off precious resources of the country at cheap prices.” This was a thinly veiled criticism of China, which buys most of North Korea’s mineral exports.

If Kim Jong-un did order the assassination of his half-brother, the murder can only further undermine relations with China. Kim Jong-nam lived in Macau and Beijing, apparently with Chinese protection and financial support. He may well have been regarded as an important political asset who could be used to as a figurehead to head an alternate regime, should Beijing ever decide to move against Pyongyang.

Fudan University professor Wang Weimin told the Washington Post that the top government circles in Beijing were “highly nervous” about Kim Jong-nam’s death. It made “China more aware of how unpredictable and cruel the current North Korean regime is, as well as Kim Jong-un’s willingness to abandon China and sell it for his own benefit at any second.”

Wang said recent Chinese intelligence indicated that some in the North Korean leadership were suggesting sacrificing ties with China and trying to establish closer links with the US, Japan and South Korea. Whether that is the case or not, the murder compounds the already sharp tensions on the Korean Peninsula and throughout Asia, aggravated by the Trump administration and its confrontational stance toward China and North Korea.

Republican health care plan guts Medicaid, shifts funds from poor to rich

Kate Randall 

House Republican leaders on Thursday briefed rank-and-file members on the outlines of their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Speaker Paul Ryan, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and two House committee chairmen reported to the press on the “talking points” presented at a meeting in the House basement.

Though short in details on how the proposals would be paid for, the plan takes aim at Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor and disabled jointly administered by the federal government and the states. It would also shift the burden of health care costs even more heavily on the working class. Republican leaders provided no estimates of the number of people who might gain or lose insurance under their proposals.

Donald Trump met at the White House Thursday with House Republicans who backed his presidential bid who were looking for his support in repealing and replacing the 2010 legislation commonly known as Obamacare. At a news conference following the meeting, the president said, “We should be submitting the initial plan in March, early March,” appearing to refer to a House bill that could move forward by then.

From its inception, the ACA’s aim has been to cut costs for corporations and the government, while shifting the US to an even more heavily class-based health care system than what previously existed. Obamacare’s key component, the “individual mandate,” compelled those without insurance to purchase it from private insurance companies under threat of a tax penalty.

Outlines of the Republicans’ replacement plan would further boost health insurers’ profits. The ACA’s modest government subsidies to low and middle income people would be replaced with tax and other mechanisms that would favor the wealthy and provide little to no assistance to the vast majority of health care consumers.

The Republican plan would repeal the individual mandate and penalty, but it would also eliminate fines on employers for not providing their workers with insurance coverage. Sources familiar with the proposal told the AP that a new tax might be imposed on individuals receiving health care from their employers valued above $12,000 for an individual or $30,000 for families. That is, it would penalize those receiving decent employer-sponsored health insurance.

It would also roll back the Medicaid expansion under the ACA, which has newly insured an estimated 10 million people. Republicans have long eyed the program—which provides vital health coverage to families, seniors and people with disabilities—for destruction. This attack on Medicaid would go a long way toward this aim, and it is among the most vicious of the Republicans’ proposals.

While providing no dollar amounts or details, the House outline calls for converting Medicaid to either a per capita cap or a block grant to the states. All past Republican plans, including those of Ryan and Price, have featured deep cuts that would grow steeply over time. It would be impossible for states to absorb these cuts without cutting coverage for people who should qualify for benefits.

Currently, Medicaid funding adjusts to meet need, whether from a public health emergency like the opioid crisis or the Zika virus, or the growing health care needs of aging baby-boomers. A block grant or per capita cap would deliberately stop this automatic response to increased need, forcing states to decide who should be denied benefits, or how benefits should be rationed among the most needy.

The Republicans’ “talking points” also confirm that “Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion for able-bodied adults [sic] enrollees would be repealed in its current form.” Their proposal would end the ACA’s enhanced federal matching funds for the currently enrolled Medicaid expansion population after a limited period of time.

While states would be “free” to continue to cover the 10 million people, plus those who would become eligible in the future, under Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, by a set date they would have to pay between 2.5 and 5 times as much per person to do so, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). The massive cut in federal funding would force states to choose between covering low-income adults and covering children, seniors and the disabled.

The savings from the cuts to Medicaid would likely go toward “relief from all the Obamacare tax increases,” as outlined by the House Republicans. According to CBPP, based on previous plans, these savings would “go to help fill the hole created by cutting Medicare taxes for high earners and eliminating drug company, insurer, and other fees” that helped finance Obamacare’s coverage expansion.

The resulting tax cuts would average $50,000 per year for households with incomes over $1 million, according the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

In place of the ACA’s refundable premium tax credits (subsidies) that are currently helping more than 9 million people afford coverage, the Republican proposal would offer a flat credit determined by age, regardless of income, with the biggest financial benefits going to older Americans.

This would mean that a 25-year-old earning $25,000 a year would receive less of a tax credit than a 65-year-old multimillionaire. The end result would be that many low- and middle-income people would be unable to come up with the money to pay the gap between their fixed tax credit and the cost of a health insurance plan.

The Republican proposals would also expand Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which allow people to put aside money tax-free to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses. These HSAs are obviously of little help to families struggling to pay rent, utilities and put food on the table and have nothing to set aside. The tax benefits for the wealthy, on the other hand, would be substantial.

The House Republicans’ plan calls for the creation of unspecified “State Innovation Grants” to supposedly aid states in covering costs for diversifying the risk pool and covering people with pre-existing conditions. CBPP notes that previous “high risk pools” have failed to provide affordable, quality health coverage for sicker individuals.

Lufthansa-union agreement on arbitration ruling: an attack on pilots in Germany

Dietmar Henning 

Lufthansa and the pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) have accepted an arbitration ruling on compensation for 5,400 Lufthansa pilots. The airline linked the agreement with a new declaration of war on the pilots.

Both sides agreed to the settlement in mid-December, after months of negotiations. The labour dispute has dragged on since 2012, and the pilots have taken strike action 14 times since 2014. Most recently, they stopped work in November 2016 for six days. Lufthansa has demanded substantial cuts in salaries and pensions, as well as attacks on working conditions, in order to gain advantages against international competitors on the backs of the pilots.

The arbitration on wages, chaired by former UN diplomat and state secretary in the foreign office, Gunter Pleuger, ended on January 31 without the union reaching an agreement with Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and German Wings. Last week, Pleuger submitted his arbitration ruling, which both sides accepted this week.

The 5,400 pilots covered by the collective agreement with Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and German Wings will receive a total wage increase of about 8.7 percent in four stages. An increase of 2 percent will be backdated to January 1, 2016, and a 2.3 percent increase will be paid from January 1, 2017. Next year, monthly salaries will rise by 2.4 percent, and at the beginning of 2019 by a further 2 percent. The collective agreement expires at the end of 2019. In addition, the arbitration ruling provides for a one-off average payment of €5,000-6,000 for full-time employees.

The shareholders see the arbitration award as favouring them. The airlines’ shares rose on Thursday by almost 3 percent, reaching the top spot on the DAX index and their highest position since last May.

Taking into account the years 2012 to 2015, VC calculated an average salary increase of about 1.2 percent per year. This is a slap in the face of the pilots, who have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to fight in recent years through strike action.

“The evaluation of the arbitrator’s award was, as expected, very difficult,” the union said in a press release, “and requires maximum willingness to compromise from the pilots.” The final arbitration ruling was “just about acceptable,” said Markus Wahl, the spokesman for VC. The union negotiating committee has recommended its members accept the arbitration ruling in a ballot to be held by the end of March.

The airline estimates that the total value of the arbitration award is about €85 million. “In order to compensate for these additional costs, 40 aircraft will be moved outside the current fleet plan and outside the collective agreement,” the company threatened in a press release in which it announced its approval of the arbitration agreement. “Details of the formulation of an alternative platform for the operation of these aircraft will be concretized in the coming weeks.”

Dr. Bettina Volkens, chief human resources and legal officer for Deutsche Lufthansa AG, was more concrete. The higher cockpit compensation costs run counter to the goal “of making Lufthansa cheaper in the cockpit and thus able to grow again,” she said. “Without a balancing compensation in other collective agreements, we must therefore take the path of changed fleet planning.” In plain English: Either the pilots accept losses in other areas, such as occupational pensions or working conditions, or the 40 aircraft will not be flown by Lufthansa pilots.

“In the long term, the Lufthansa Classic fleet will shrink,” VC spokesman Wahl told the DPA on Thursday. It was not yet clear how soon this process would take effect. However, Lufthansa, with its 5,400 regular pilots, is already shrinking its workforce by not hiring any new pilots under the terms of the Company Collective Agreement (KTV).

If aircraft are removed from the fleet more quickly than pilots retire, there may be a “personnel surplus,” in other words, job losses. This means that in the medium-term the still reasonably paid pilots under the KTV would be replaced by their colleagues from the low-cost subsidiary Euro Wings.

Despite this open threat, which anticipates the next attacks on pilots, the union is recommending its members accept the arbitration agreement.

However, the one-off payment means lower salaries in the long term. This is not the only bitter pill that the pilots will have to swallow. The company and union could not agree to the usual “non-retaliation policy.” This means the company is not waiving the possibility of taking any work-related or criminal action against workers who participated in strikes.

The refusal to sign the existing non-retaliation agreement is yet another threat. The airline has put the cost of the pilots strike at over one half billion euros. Without a non-retaliation agreement, the company would be legally able to claim these costs back from the strikers or have recourse to them under industrial legislation.

Lufthansa pilots should reject the arbitration agreement. The problem the pilots confront, however, is that the trade union’s promotion of social partnership, co-determination and close collaboration with the company management has proven to be bankrupt. Confronted with international competition, airline workers can only defend their interests with an international and socialist perspective that does not subordinate the rights of workers to the profit demands of the companies.

Currently, the opposite is the case. Pilots with existing contracts at Lufthansa are being pitted against pilots at Euro Wings, and all pilots are pitted against ground crews and cabin staff, etc. The trade unions, including the smaller sectoral unions like VC, play along with this. The pilots union, which once claimed that it would use its fighting power to improve the working conditions of all employees, is now calling on workers to accept a miserable arbitration agreement, aimed not only against the pilots, but also against those working in other areas.

For example, the Independent Flight Attendants Organisation (UFO) immediately protested the arbitration award. Its leader, Nicoley Baublies, said that if Lufthansa outsourced 40 aircraft to pay the pilots then the cost would also be borne by flight attendants.

Lufthansa stated in its press release that “the employment outlook of ground and cabin staff [was] not encumbered by this” because “cost reductions and new retirement structures” could be agreed with UFO and the Verdi union. Baublies then responded that there was “no willingness so far to negotiate with UFO about how this can happen.” He therefore regarded the arbitration award as being “at the expense of third parties.”

Neither Verdi, UFO nor Cockpit has ever attempted to coordinate industrial action against the same powerful Lufthansa Group. Instead, they offer themselves as partners of management in order to isolate the resistance of employees in individual areas and thus keep the working class as a whole under control.

French neo-fascists present anti-EU, anti-immigrant program in 2017 elections

Alice Laurençon

After her campaign launch in Lyon, the neo-fascist National Front’s (FN) presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, released her 144-point election program. It proposes a raft of vicious anti-immigrant and particularly anti-Muslim measures, law-and-order policies, and military escalation, as well as attacking the NATO military alliance and the European Union (EU) from the right.

The hostility towards these policies in a majority of the French population notwithstanding, Le Pen still has a strong chance of winning the April-May presidential elections. According to an Ipsos poll published on Thursday, she would win the first round of the election with 25 to 26 percent of the vote, ahead of PS-linked independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, with 20 to 23 percent of the vote.

This reflects the bankruptcy and unpopularity of the Socialist Party (PS) of President François Hollande, who is in the final months of a presidency dominated by austerity, war and its imposition of a state of emergency in France. The PS is divided over the winner of the PS presidential primary, Benoît Hamon, with much of the party backing Macron, a former investment banker.

The right-wing Les Républicains (LR) is also in the throes of a deep crisis, after allegations that its candidate, François Fillon, paid nearly €1 million of public funds to his wife for a fictitious job as his parliamentary attaché. Le Pen is seeking to benefit from the collapse of bourgeois democracy in France and growing popular disgust with the political establishment in France and across Europe.

Macron, the former economy minister in Hollande’s government, has also benefited from the crisis in these two parties, and polls currently show that he would beat Le Pen in the second round. However, referring to an Ifop survey showing that only 36 percent of current Macron voters are sure of their decision, Ifop co-chief Frédéric Dabi stated: “Marine Le Pen is the most serious candidate for the second round, given the continuity of the FN’s score since 2012.”

He added, “[Macron] is benefitting from the expectations of change, he is benefitting from the difficulties of the candidates from government parties, Benoît Hamon and above all François Fillon, but his share of voters are the least sure of their choice, the most undecided”.

The French ruling elite, and in particular the PS, is increasingly anxious over the widespread disillusionment with the traditional parties and the growing possibility of an FN victory. On Thursday, Le Monde wrote: “Within the Socialist Party, there’s panic. Not so much because Hamon is a bad candidate, but because fortune is smiling on Marine Le Pen. … The victory of Donald Trump, the anti-elite candidate, at the head of a democracy as old and as powerful as the United States shows that populism can win over even an educated people at the forefront of the most advanced technology.”

Trump's election has intensified the deep uncertainty and political tensions in Europe. Le Pen has endorsed Trump, whose administration is backing the FN—an endorsement that the media and political circles have glossed over, despite Trump's overwhelming unpopularity in France. The FN programme echoes Trump’s condemnation of the EU as the tool of Germany and his celebration of last year’s Brexit vote.

In the very first article of its programme, the FN commits to calling a referendum on France’s membership of the EU, declaring that France must “Regain our liberty and the control of our destiny”. The FN claims it will withdraw from NATO, echoing Trump's remarks that the alliance is “obsolete”, and assert a more independent foreign policy, including “an autonomous Defence capacity in every area.”

Le Pen's militaristic proposals include an increase in defense spending to 2 percent of GDP from her first year in office and then to 3 percent by the end of her term, the reinstatement of compulsory military service for at least three months, and a renovation and increase of France’s nuclear arsenal.

This militarisation is not aimed solely at targets overseas, but also at the working-class at home. The FN pledges to “massively rearm the law and order forces”, including with the recruitment of 15,000 new police officers and “modernisation” of their weaponry. The FN programme calls for targeting poor suburbs of France’s major cities and “taking back control of lawless zones by the state.”

Le Pen has also indicated her desire for closer ties with Russia, and has repeatedly called for lifting US-EU sanctions against Russia. Her orientation to Moscow has lead to unsubstantiated accusations in the press that the Kremlin plans to interfere in the French elections in favour of Le Pen and against Macron, allegations mirroring those made against Donald Trump’s campaign in the United States.

Intense divisions have erupted in the European ruling elite over how to respond to the crisis in the EU and the election of Trump. Many elements in the French ruling class are desperate to prevent an FN presidency, which could portend the complete disintegration of the EU.

However, significant sections of the French bourgeoisie, reflected in Le Pen’s campaign, have concluded that the single European currency is disadvantageous for France and favours Germany. Faced with France's growing economic weakness vis-à-vis Germany, they are considering a strategy of allying with Russia, the Trump administration, or both to pressure Berlin.

This break-down of the post-World War II international capitalist order has given the FN an opening to develop as a central force in bourgeois politics. It has sought to rebrand itself as a “mainstream” party, expelling its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 over his remarks defending France's Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime and minimising the Holocaust. The expulsion of the older Le Pen was a tactical move, as his unabashedly reactionary views hindered his daughter Marine's efforts to ‘normalise’ the FN—for which the PS and the pseudo-left have provided endless assistance.

PS attempts to inscribe deprivation of nationality into the constitution, a principle invoked during the deportation of Jews to concentration camps during the Nazi Occupation, show the PS's adaption to the FN's politics. The PS also imposed a state of emergency, brutally dismantled the refugee camp in Calais, and supported bans on full-face veils and Muslim “burkini” swimwear. After the November 2015 attacks in Paris, Hollande repeatedly invited Marine Le Pen to the Elysee Palace, in the name of “national unity”.

The pseudo-left New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) and Workers’ Struggle (LO) have played no less a dirty role. By indicating their support for Hollande in 2012 and by working with the trade unions to suffocate working class opposition against hated PS policies, like the 2016 Labour Law, they blocked opposition to the PS from the left and handed political initiative to the far right.

The support of the NPA and most explicitly of the LO for the ban on Muslim veils and burkinis, in the name of secularisation and gender equality, provides an open road for Le Pen to formulate further measures against Muslims and immigrants. In the section of its programme entitled “Make France a Country of Liberties Again”, the FN uses similar rhetoric to demand more attacks on Muslims, proposing to defend women’s rights by “fighting against Islamism.”

The FN’s anti-immigrant agenda also includes increasing border controls; removing the right to French nationality for children born on French territory to foreign parents; making it impossible for illegal immigrants to become naturalised French citizens; and simplifying the process of their deportation.

Reality sinks in in Russia after Flynn ouster

Andrea Peters

The forced resignation of US National Security Adviser (NSA) Michael Flynn over accusations regarding his conversations with the Russian ambassador prior to the inauguration of US President Donald Trump has provoked new anxieties in Moscow. The Russian ruling elite is attempting to sort out the implications for itself of the conflict raging in the American political establishment over US geostrategy.

Militarily unprepared for a large-scale confrontation with the United States, and presiding over a population frightened of war and increasingly embittered over falling living standards, the Kremlin had hoped that Trump’s seemingly more friendly approach would allow Moscow to shore up its precarious position.

Having been among the first leaders to personally congratulate Trump on his election, after a phone call in late January with the White House, President Vladimir Putin insisted that Russia “over the past two centuries supported America, was its ally in two world wars and now sees it as its most important partner in the struggle against international terrorism.”

This marked a notable shift in the Kremlin’s tone. In recent years, Putin has repeatedly criticized Washington for destabilizing the world order and seeking to undermine Russia’s territorial integrity through support for pro-Islamic terrorist movements within Russia’s borders.

After his election, leading Russian pundit Fyodor Lukyanov went so far as to describe Trump as “the president of our dreams.” In an effort to obscure the fascistic politics of the billionaire American president—and lend a progressive gloss to similar tendencies within Russia—the pro-Kremlin, right-wing press has hailed Trump as “a right-wing socialist” who combines social conservatism with a concern for “the bottom” in society.

The enthusiasm for Trump, however, is increasingly tempered by fears that Russia will be unable to find a new modus vivendi with the US. This sentiment has become more pronounced after the ouster of Flynn, who among Trump advisers, appeared to be among the most amenable to cooperation with Russia.

Officially, the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to issue a statement on Flynn’s removal from office. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitri Peskov declared on Tuesday, “We do not wish in any way to comment on this internal affair of the Americans, this internal affair of the administration of President Donald Trump. This is not our business.”

When pressed as to whether it was possible to understand the dynamic of Russian-American relations during Trump’s tenure in office thus far, Peskov stated cautiously, “It is too early to speak of this.”

While Peskov attempted to project a sense of calm over the political warfare raging in Washington, it is clear that the optimistic response of the Russian ruling elite to Trump’s presidential victory is giving way to moods of caution and even pessimism.

Leonid Slutsky, a member of the Russian Duma’s committee on foreign affairs, described Flynn’s forced resignation as being “of a provocative character.” He described it as a “negative signal” for the “Russian-American dialogue.” Aleksei Pushkov, another committee member, described the situation unfolding in the US as a “witch-hunt.”

A February 14 comment in Rossiskaya Gazeta, the official Russian government newspaper, summed up the mood spreading within the country’s elite when it noted, “Flynn worked in his post for just 24 days. The impetuous and scandalous resignation of one of the key advisers [in the Trump administration] casts a shadow on the president, and without a doubt will be used by his opponents to further the anti-Russian hysteria in the internal political struggle.”

Adding that one “could only guess” at what Flynn’s resignation would mean for the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia, it noted that the new American president was clearly not in control of the myriad agencies making up the US security services and that he was facing stiff resistance from both Democrats and “hawk-Republicans.”

The notion that Trump’s pro-Russian policy is falling victim to a vast conspiracy involving the American intelligence community has been repeated in numerous Russian-language publications.

The leading daily Izvestia, carried a piece by political scientist Viktor Olevich, in which the author decried “The dangerous weakness of Trump,” arguing that the US president had crumbled beneath “massive pressure from the side of those uninterested in reforming the foreign policy course of the US.”

Flynn’s removal from office is part of the relentless anti-Russian campaign being waged by powerful sections of the American ruling class, which sees Moscow’s control over the Eurasian landmass as an intolerable obstacle to the US drive for global hegemony.

Even as Trump continues to defend Flynn and insist that his government is the victim of illegal insider leaks, tensions between the US and Russia mount.

Shortly after news broke of Flynn’s resignation, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer declared that the US president expects Russia to return Crimea, the predominantly ethnically Russian region of Ukraine absorbed by Moscow following a popular referendum after the February 2014 US-backed anti-Russian coup in Kiev.

In response, Russia’s Peskov declared that his country does not discuss matters related to its own territory with foreign powers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated the Kremlin’s position the following day, stating, “We are not returning our territory. Crimea is the territory of the Russian Federation.”

The same day stories began circulating in the US press that a Russia spy vessel was detected off the coast of Delaware. In another development, unsourced claims emerged in the American press that Russia had deployed a land-based missile in violation of a 1987 treaty with the US. Moscow has denied these allegations.

Having recently sent a destroyer into the Black Sea, an area of key geostrategic importance for Russia, just this week the US claimed that Russian aircraft buzzed the American warship in a series of threatening aerial maneuvers. Moscow denies this.

Simultaneous to these developments, leaks have emerged about the late January phone call between Putin and Trump that undermine the positive portrayals of the exchange. According to the Washington Post, at some point mid-way during the call, Trump paused the discussion to ask an aide about the nuclear arms treaty, New START, negotiated with Russia under the Obama administration. In his exchange with Putin, he then went on to denounce the deal as overly favorable to Moscow. The Kremlin has said it has nothing further to say about the conversation.

Top figures in both leading US parties adamantly oppose any lifting of the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the US starting in 2014, with Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer preparing a bipartisan bill that would significantly limit Trump’s ability to enact any changes to the sanctions regime. Flynn was pushed out of office over allegations that he indicated to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak that the measures targeting Russia’s economy and political system could be lifted once Trump came into office. The Kremlin denies that the matter was discussed.

There are growing demands for an investigation into the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia, which come on top of ongoing congressional inquiries into Moscow’s supposed interference in the US elections. The new American president is essentially being accused of acting as an agent of the Kremlin.

On Wednesday, speaking before an audience of students and teachers at the country’s diplomatic academy about the situation in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attempted to sound an optimistic note about his country’s relations with the US and its allies. He expressed confidence that “our partners”—France and Germany, as well as the United States—will “block attempts to sabotage the fulfillment of the Minsk [Accords] on the part of Kiev, whose destructive actions are deepening the intra-Ukrainian conflict.” Lavrov went on to assert that Russia was “neither an advocate of confrontation nor isolation,” with regards to the Western states.

Without any solution to the geopolitical crisis it faces, the Russian ruling elite continuously resorts to a combination of military saber-rattling and desperate appeals to Washington to shift course.

Exactly how relations between Washington and Moscow will unfold in the short term remains unclear, as the conflict within the US political establishment over policy towards Russia rages on.

German defence minister announces massive increase in military budget

Johannes Stern 

On Thursday, a guest column by Germany’s defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, was published as a special supplement of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Titled “Von der Leyen answers the USA: we have understood,” the column discussed this year’s Munich Security Conference and announced a massive increase in the military budget.

Three years ago, von der Leyen and President Joachim Gauck and his successor, at that time Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, announced the end of military restraint at the Munich Security Conference. Von der Leyen is now exploiting new US Defence Minister James “Mad Dog” Mattis’ demand that the Europeans play a larger role in their own defence to—in her words—to allow “words to follow actions.”

Von der Leyen writes, “[w]e Germans and most Europeans have stood for far too long on the broad shoulders of our American friends when it comes to security. And yes, we know that we must share a larger part of the burden for our common Atlantic security.” In Europe, the readiness to do this is “greater than ever before,” she said. The European armed forces have “learned in numerous common deployments in the past decades to trust the military ability and caution of others,” she added.

The defence minister attested to the importance of NATO at the end of her article, saying that Berlin “should shape this growth into more responsibility for security in a European way.” However, her statements leave no room for doubt that the German elite really wants to increase its political and military weight on the continent with the help of the EU.

“Germany has shown security policy initiative in the past few years,” boasted von der Leyen. She mentioned the “Minsk Ukraine agreement,” “the nuclear agreement with Iran,” the “building of new, rapid response NATO spearheads,” the “fight against the IS terror,” the interventions in Mali and Afghanistan, the fight against smugglers in the Mediterranean and the Aegean and “our considerable presence in the Baltics, currently in Lithuania.”

“All of this speaks for itself” and “Germany will continue in this way,” she added almost threateningly. This goes “also for the defence budget.” We have “the firm will” to achieve the NATO indicator of two percent of GDP “in the next few years,” she said.

What was once unthinkable is now official policy: the federal government is determined to double the defence budget, which currently stands at approximately €37 billion (1.2 percent of GDP). In an interview with the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel that appeared on Saturday, the chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, demanded an arms budget increase to 3 percent of GDP, or more than €90 billion.

These plans make it clear what awaits workers and youth in the coming months. The ruling class wants to bleed the population so that it can carry out an aggressive foreign and great power policy. It wants to use the working class as cannon fodder for new wars and to subject workers to massive social cuts so that it can shift funding to the military. The police will be heavily armed so that an aggressive foreign policy can be pursued in the face of massive popular opposition.

Von der Leyen’s comment leaves no room for doubt that the German ruling class is once again pursuing its old program of military domination over Europe, the larger aim of which is to play a leading role in the world, and to promote its own economic and geopolitical interests at the expense of the other great powers.

“In addition to war deployments,” it is also necessary to “strengthen national and alliance defence once again,” wrote von der Leyen. “For this reason, we must grow in Europe, become more powerful and develop key capabilities on our continent at the very least,” she added.

“A smart instrument for this” would be the “framework nation concept: because we know that we have capability gaps in Europe, which a middle-sized European power can scarcely fill alone, we join forces.” Germany is “taking the lead in many areas and is making it possible for other nations to participate. We are filling gaps, are becoming stronger as Europeans in NATO, and reducing redundancies, which we thought we could afford in the past because of national conceitedness.”

This is an extremely explicit statement of the current strategy of German imperialism. It is obvious that Berlin’s aim is to establish the German army as the so-called “anchor army” for European NATO countries, to heavily arm NATO in Europe and to subordinate it gradually to the command structure of the German army.

One must think “once again in terms of larger alliances,” said von der Leyen. “To that end, as Europeans we want to build deeply integrated divisions that are well-equipped and trained and bring together up to three countries at a time. Similarly to the way it is already done in France and the Netherlands, we are inviting Romania and the Czech Republic to join a federation with units of our army,” she said. She has already signed agreements to this effect with her counterparts in these countries.

“The additional value of this collaboration” is already showing itself today “on the eastern border of NATO. Germany leads a multinational battalion, which signals not only its readiness to defend the alliance, but is also training intensively with the Lithuanian armed forces. If the partner troops arm themselves with German technology, this is also in our interests.”

Furthermore, she and the French defence minister “initiated the building of a common transport wing, for example for special forces deployments.” With the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Luxembourg, the German army is building “a common fleet for in-flight refuelling.” And “following the same logic,” she is also offering “to build a multinational federation for military air transport in Germany with Germany’s southern neighbours.”

The immediate aim of these efforts is a “European defence union” dominated by Germany. It is about “improving the armament process with a European Defence Fund, bringing the planning processes of NATO and the EU closer together and creating interlocking leadership structures in order to make EU civil and military missions more successful, for example in Africa.” The instrument for this “was laid down in the treaties of the EU long ago: the ‘permanent structured cooperation.’” One must “only activate” it.

What “instruments” will be “activated” if necessary is made clear by the shocking debate over German and/or European nuclear weapons. An article in the current edition of Die Zeit, entitled “Atomic power Europe … Does the EU need the bomb?” expresses genuine regret that the German army does not have “free access” to the American atomic weapons stationed in Germany, but can only “deploy them … if Washington gives the green light.” Some Europeans can now “imagine their own deterrence, independent of the USA.”

The German elite knows one thing with certainty. After the 20th century’s two terrible world wars, with millions of dead and unspeakable crimes, the great majority of the people are not prepared to become involved once again in the murderous plans of German imperialism.

“It is politically impossible to apply the label ‘atomic power Germany’ at home,” remarked Die Zeit with obvious disappointment. “Germany, as every minister knows, is a pacifist country, the population rejects the participation of the army in international military deployments. Atomic weapons are only discussed here if we are getting rid of them,” the newspaper complained.

Pentagon chief warns of “arc of instability” at Munich security conference

Bill Van Auken

James “Mad Dog” Mattis, the retired Marine general and US defense secretary, delivered a speech at the annual Munich security conference that appeared designed to soothe the sharp tensions between Europe and America that have emerged in the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Mattis sounded a warning to the conference aimed at justifying a further escalation of US and NATO militarism. “We all see our community of nations under threat on multiple fronts as the arc of instability builds on NATO’s periphery and beyond,” he told the meeting, which brought together some 70 defense ministers as well as a number of heads of state. Vice President Mike Pence is to address the conference on Saturday.

The “arc of instability” is a phrase that encompasses multiple targets for US aggression, including the Middle East, North Africa and both Iran and Russia.

Mattis went on to declare that “American security is permanently tied to the security of Europe,” adding, “I have great respect for Germany’s leadership in Europe.”

At the same time, he echoed remarks made earlier at a NATO meeting in Brussels, where he warned that Washington could “moderate” its support for the alliance if other member states did not increase their military spending. “It is a fair demand that all who benefit from the best alliance in the world carry their proportionate share of the necessary costs to defend our freedoms,” he said.

The Pentagon chief’s remarks appeared largely in continuity with US foreign policy pursued by previous administrations and were at odds with Trump’s own rhetorical attacks on NATO as “obsolete” and his labeling of the European Union as a “consortium” exploited by Germany for its own interests.

Mattis’s speech came in the midst of the ferocious internecine battle within the US ruling establishment over US policy toward Russia, which came to head with the forced resignation of Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn over his pre-inauguration conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US.

Both Mattis and the US secretary of state, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who was attending a nearby meeting of the G-20 foreign ministers in Bonn, have signaled that there is no imminent prospect of a rapprochement that would significantly ease tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Even as Mattis was speaking in Munich, the US military was deploying to Bulgaria as part of the US-NATO buildup in Eastern Europe and on Russia’s borders that now involves 4,000 American troops as well as forces from Britain, Germany and other NATO allies. This buildup has continued unabated since Trump entered the White House.

The speech by the Pentagon chief was accompanied by remarks by his German counterpart, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, which included fairly pointed criticism of the rhetoric on Europe coming from the Trump White House.

“Our American friends know well that your tone on Europe and NATO has a direct impact on the cohesion of our continent,” von der Leyen told the Munich Security Conference. Warning against any move by Washington toward rapprochement with Russia, she added, “There cannot be a policy of equidistance to allies and to those who openly question our values, our borders and international law.”

In what amounted to a thinly veiled attack on Trump’s abortive attempt to impose a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries, the German defense minister told the conference: “We should be careful that this fight does not become a front against Islam and Muslims. Otherwise we run the risk of digging ourselves into a deeper grave in which violence and terror only grow further.”

Prior to the Munich conference, Mattis stated that there could be no military cooperation between the US and Russia until Moscow “proves itself,” reiterating the US position underlying sanctions over Ukraine and Crimea.

Tillerson sounded a similar note Friday, explicitly rejecting any shift from the general strategy pursued by Washington in relation to Syria since the launching of the CIA-orchestrated war for regime change nearly six years ago. Meeting with his counterparts from other major backers of the Islamist “rebels,” including France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Britain, the US secretary of state stressed that there would be no military cooperation with Russia in Syria until Moscow distanced itself from the government of Bashar al-Assad and accepted the legitimacy of the Al Qaeda-linked rebels that the US and its allies have armed and supported.

Tillerson also reiterated support for the UN-led talks on Syria that are supposed to resume next Thursday in Geneva. The Russian government of President Vladimir Putin had invited Washington to participate in talks brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran held in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, but the Trump administration sent only the local ambassador as an observer.

While Tillerson’s and Mattis’s interventions in Brussels, Bonn and Munich were clearly aimed at calming tensions that have grown between the US and Europe, the bitter character of the battle raging within Washington ruling circles was expressed in Munich by an extraordinary speech delivered by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican and head of the Senate armed services committee. This internecine conflict has nothing to do with the democratic or social rights of the vast majority of the population, but is rather driven by rival US war strategies.

McCain described the Trump administration, which his party ostensibly supports, as in “disarray,” and suggested that it was part of “an increasing turn away from universal values and toward old ties of blood and race and sectarianism.”

Referring to the forced resignation of Trump’s national security advisor, McCain told his audience in Munich: “I think that the Flynn issue obviously is something that shows that in many respects this administration is in disarray and they’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Drawing a distinction between Trump’s “America First” rhetoric and the policies advanced by his top advisors, McCain continued: “I know there is profound concern across Europe and the world that America is laying down the mantle of global leadership. I can only speak for myself, but I do not believe that that is the message you will hear from all of the American leaders who cared enough to travel here to Munich this weekend. That’s not the message you heard today from Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. That is not the message you will hear from Vice President Mike Pence. That’s not the message you will hear from Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly.”

McCain, one of Washington’s most vociferous advocates of aggression against Russia, was at the center of a controversy last month in which he passed documents to US intelligence agencies alleging secret ties between Moscow and Trump and his campaign team.

These actions, as well as the open attack on a sitting president by his own party at an international conference in Munich, are virtually unprecedented. They reflect the intense hostility within the US military and intelligence apparatus against any move by the Trump administration to pull back from the protracted escalation of provocations and aggression against Russia. To the extent that Trump has advanced an alternative policy, it has not been one of retreat from global militarism, but rather a tactical shift toward first preparing for war first against Iran and escalating the US confrontation with China.

US Homeland Security memo: Deploy 100,000 National Guard troops to round up immigrants

Eric London

The Associated Press on Friday published a memo by the Trump administration’s Homeland Security secretary, retired Gen. John Kelly, proposing the deployment of 100,000 National Guard troops to carry out the president’s January 25 executive order mandating an escalation of the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.

The front page of the 11-page memo reads “From: John Kelly.” It recommends that the governors of 11 states in the South and along the Pacific Coast be instructed to mobilize their state National Guards for the purpose of “perform[ing] the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension, and detention of aliens in the United States.”

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the AP report was “irresponsible” and “100 percent not true.” But only hours later, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told AP anonymously that the document existed and had been drawn up by the DHS.

Spicer then claimed that it was “not a White House document,” and DHS sources said the memo was not presented to President Trump. Spicer added that there was presently “no effort at all to utilize the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants.”

However, Spicer did not deny that the memo was discussed within the Trump administration as a possible course of action. Nor did he state that its proposals would not be considered in the future.

This date of the Kelly memo is January 25, and its first sentence declares its purpose to be the implementation of a January 20 executive order. Since no immigration executive order was issued on January 20, inauguration day, it is likely that Kelly’s memo was a response to an earlier draft of the anti-immigrant executive order that was announced and signed by Trump on January 25. This would indicate that Kelly’s proposal was discussed prior to the issuance of the final order on January 25.

If implemented, the memorandum would require the de facto if not de jure imposition of martial law in cities as far north as Portland, Oregon and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana. Under the terms of the memorandum, the National Guard could be deployed to all states that touch the Mexican border, as well as the states adjoining those border states. In all, these include Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The fact that such a memo would even be submitted and discussed at the highest levels of the government is a warning to the entire working class, native-born as well as immigrant. It lifts the veil on preparations for state violence on a massive scale to suppress domestic opposition to the ruling class’ policies of war and social reaction.

Though the memorandum does not include specific instructions on how deportations are to be carried out, the proposal to deploy 100,000 soldiers across 11 states makes clear that what is being prepared is a crackdown of unprecedented scope and brutality. In his election campaign, Trump pledged to deport at least 3 million undocumented immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Latin America.

The executive order issued on January 25 calls for a huge buildup of the border patrol, the construction of new detention centers near the Mexican border, the construction of a wall along the entirety of the border, and an expansion of the dragnet to include virtually all undocumented immigrants. Already last week, extensive raids were carried out around the country resulting in the detention and deportation of hundreds of workers.

President Obama earned the nickname “deporter in chief” for overseeing the deportation of more people than all previous presidents combined. Trump plans to put his criminal policy in the shade. The Los Angeles Times has estimated that the January 25 order makes some 8 million undocumented workers subject to deportation.

Kelly’s proposal entails a military operation of wartime proportions. In terms of savagery and scale, the operation would far surpass the imposition of the pre-Civil War Fugitive Slave Act and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two.

Armed military detachments would likely set up barricades and checkpoints in working class districts. Those trying to escape to states outside the zones of deployment would be hunted down and jailed.

Entire sections of Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, Denver, San Diego and other cities would be placed under military occupation. Heavily armed soldiers would go house-to-house, breaking down doors and dragging immigrants away from their families. The thousands or perhaps millions targeted by the raids would be sent to internment camps where they would be detained indefinitely or processed for expulsion from the country.

The deployment of the National Guard would also serve to suppress protests against deportations, which have grown in recent weeks and spread to cities large and small. A precedent was set by Obama, under whom Democratic governors deployed the National Guard to quell protests in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and Baltimore, Maryland in 2015.

Whatever their tactical differences, the Democrats are complicit in Trump’s immigration policy. Democratic senators overwhelmingly supported Kelly’s confirmation, voting 37-11 in favor. Senator Bernie Sanders defended his support for Kelly by proclaiming his hope that Kelly “will have a moderating influence on some of the racist and xenophobic views that President Trump advocated throughout the campaign.” He made this statement five days before Kelly wrote the leaked memo.

Kelly’s memorandum also proposes to eliminate the right to a court hearing for hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of migrants. It calls for an expansion of expedited removal proceedings to include a broad category of undocumented migrants who cannot affirmatively show that they have lived in the United States for two years. Under such proceedings, the right to appear before a judge before deportation is dispensed with. The memo claims eliminating the right to due process is necessary because of an “unacceptable delay” in the deportation process caused by the backlog of removal cases currently pending in immigration court.

In addition, the memo proposes to send migrants back to the country through which they entered the US (almost always Mexico) while they wait for the multi-year court process to play out. These migrants would be denied the right to appear in court and be allowed to attend only “via video conference.” This would result in the abrogation of almost all due process rights, which attach to undocumented migrants only when they are on US soil.

The Kelly memo also attacks asylum seekers who are escaping from war, poverty and violence caused by decades of US imperialist plunder. The memo claims that “the asylum process is rife with fraud and abuse,” and that asylum officers should release applicants from detention only if “the alien has a significant possibility of establishing eligibility for asylum, based on established legal authority,” an arbitrary standard that will be difficult for migrants to prove, especially without an attorney present. The memo also proposes to drastically reduce the social services available for unaccompanied youth migrants who make the difficult trek across the Southern desert by themselves, often at a very young age.

These proposals did not emerge in a historical vacuum. They have been prepared over years in which both the Democratic and Republican parties have spearheaded a ruthless assault on immigrants. It was President Clinton who signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 into law, while denouncing “the problem of illegal immigration.” All leading Democrats supported the Secure Fences Act of 2006, including senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Charles Schumer and Joseph Biden.

In the course of more than 15 years of the war on terror, the American ruling class has sought to whip up a climate of xenophobia in an attempt to divide the working class and justify its imperialist wars around the world. The wave of protests against Trump’s war on immigrants shows that this campaign has not succeeded in winning significant popular support, and that a large majority of working Americans retain a deep commitment to democratic rights.

However, the defense of the rights of immigrants—and the democratic rights of the working class as a whole—requires that the entire reactionary framework of the official debate on immigration policy be rejected. Both Trump and his establishment critics, Republicans and Democrats, take the position that so-called “illegal” immigrants are criminals and that foreign-born workers must be prevented from entering the country by means of militarized borders and armies of border police.

The working class must uphold the right of all workers to live and work in the country of their choice with full citizenship rights, including the right to work and travel without fear of deportation or repression. The slogan must be open borders and the unity of workers, immigrant and native-born, in a common struggle against the capitalist system, which is the source of poverty, racism and oppression.