Solidarity with Refugee Caravan

NYSNA stands in solidarity with the caravan of thousands of refugees fleeing poverty and violence as they journey north to the US border. Please see below a letter from from the National Writers Union: 

Support the Refugee Caravan to the U.S. 

As man as 8,000 men, women and children, mostly from Honduras, are traveling by foot to the southern U.S. border. They are currently in and around Mexico City.  They are fleeing poverty, corruption and violence that is largely the result of more than a century of U.S. domination. 

This was most recently displayed in the US-backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected liberal reformer Zelaya in 2009, triggering a mass exodus to escape poverty, crime, drug trafficking and police violence. They join more than 60 million refugees around the world, from Africa to South Asia, from Syria to Somalia, trying to escape the horrors of war and terror. This is the fruit of the free-market. 

Around the world, Trump-like politicians are using the refugee crisis to build mass fascist movements that could lead to wider wars. Trump has targeted the refugees for the most racist lies, calling them everything from criminals to disease carriers to Middle East Muslim terrorists, funded by Jewish billionaires. This racist hysteria led to directly to the massacre on a Pittsburgh synagogue on October 27 by a Nazi gunman. 

Trump has deployed more than 5,000 active-duty troops to the border, in addition to another army of ICE agents, Border Patrol and fascist vigilante militias against unarmed poor people, mainly families with children. He is threatening to deploy 10,000 more to help build the camps that will greet the refugees and house them for some time to come.

In NY, a few of us in NWU have started working with the New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC), which has the goal of bringing one million people to the border to welcome the refugees. We raised this with our UAW CAP Council which voted unanimously to give $500 to the NSC Gala last week.  I have been asked by NSC to help build a labor/union component to this effort. This includes mobilizing our union and others to help in any way possible, including sending delegations to the border to greet the refugees sometime next month. 

This crisis needs everyone’s participation at whatever level you can participate. We cannot sit this out. If you are interested in working on this campaign, please let me know.