The Disappearing of Students is a Labor Problem
The news is full of stories of international students, legally studying in the United States, being arrested by ICE agents and being sent far away from their homes, families, friends, and support networks. Regardless of one’s position on the Israel and Palestine conflict, these arrests should alarm everyone because they are an overt attack on these students’ rights to free speech. In a country which has patted itself on the back for the ACLU defending Nazis’ right to speak in Skokie, Illinois (the “I hate Illinois Nazis” reference in the Blues Brothers) and where “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is reflexively spouted by politicians and self-congratulatory intelligentsia, these arrests not only demonstrate hypocrisy, but also an attack on the very foundation for Unions and the American way of life they helped build and continue to defend.
President Trump and his sycophantic administration are attacking the First Amendment. Despite all their assertions or indignant protestation to the contrary, this assault is deliberate and meant to destroy a fundamental principle which undergirds our society. The First Amendment protects the free press. Trump’s petulant assaults on and lawfare against respected news organizations like the Associated Press for their factual reporting while promoting other outfits only because they don’t cover embarrassing information, flatter, or promote a misinformation-laden preferred message, is promoting a state media while abridging a free press. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine would be horrified if they could see this state of affairs. The First Amendment protects the lack or practice of religion. Trump and the authors of Project 2025 are actively working to suppress secular Americans and religions other than their preferred, Nationalist Christianity while simultaneously and disingenuously claiming victim-hood of the practitioners of their state religion. Not only is this hypocritical, it serves to further dismantle our shared rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America. Trump and Christian Nationalism are no friends of the First Amendment. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, acting on a Trump issued Executive Order has issued an order for the State Department to find “anti-Christian” bias and who knows what absurd “violations” Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense has "found". Remember, he has tattoos of iconography associated with the Crusades and has previously stated a desire for a Muslim genocide.
While the Trump regime claims the apprehension of students is either in relation to antisemitism or immigration, they are, in fact, suppression of speech. Most, if not all share an obvious commonality - they all spoke out against the war on Gaza. Whether one agrees with their positions, their actions and words constitute political speech. As the Skokie decision established, even antisemitic speech (I am not alleging these students said anything antisemitic) is protected under the First Amendment. By relying on policy derived from faulty and motivated reasoning and authoritarian decree, it was decided foreign students, visa-holders, green card recipients, and the like are not protected by the First Amendment – a claim not supported by society, legal precedence, or the Constitution. These arrests are meant to not only encourage self-censorship but to further erode our protections and, allowed to continue, will weather away and destroy more than political speech and more rights. We must fight for theses students’ right to free speech even if we don’t agree with them. Otherwise, our speech, our right to protest, picket, or strike will be next. Doubt this circumstance is a possibility? Just look at what is happening to Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and other Universities across the country. How can anyone seriously claim the non-violent student protests would be viewed differently than protests, pickets, or strikes for other issues should the sitting administration take offense or become displeased? Trump has already overtly made comments referencing some form of “illegal protests,” and has attacked prominent schools where pro-Palestinian protests or encampments have occurred. It doesn’t take a leap of the imagination to anticipate attacks on Unions when they picket or strike to improve their working conditions. Remember the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Chiquola Mill Massacre! Attacks on Unions have always been the modus operandi of both the bosses and the government.
Unions and the Labor Movement present an organized front against authoritarianism. As a result Trump, his enablers, oligarchs like Elon Musk, and sycophants realized they need to remove them from the equation. As was clearly spelled out in Project 2025, Trump is engaged in this assault on the federal level. Through Sharpie fiat he has declared federal Unions representing almost 1 million workers disbanded - non-existent. He’s declared their collective bargaining agreements null-and-void despite lacking any such legitimate authority to do so. To believe such atrocities will not be visited upon other Unions, public or private, is an exercise in self-delusion. The Trump regime is deliberately assaulting the First Amendment to weakening it and, in doing so, eliminate our right to both peaceably assemble and petition for redress of our grievances. Unions, as institutions, exist in this space. If we accept, passively or otherwise, any weakening of the First Amendment, we cannot expect Organized Labor to survive. Under no circumstances is this situation acceptable!
In anticipation of someone questioning this reasoning, a reexamination of what has already occurred is appropriate. By utilizing immigration and accusations of antisemitism as excuses, the Trump administration is actively silencing political speech through the threat of and following through with “disappearing” students. The schools are being attacked for their students exercising their free speech. The Secretary of State and other cabinet members are engaged in a witch hunt for “anti-Christian” bias – which conveniently coincides with the administration’s anti Diversity Equity and Inclusion agenda and a white Christian Nationalist world view. Meanwhile, Trump is signing Executive Orders which illegally disband Unions and eliminate their contracts and voluntary payroll deduction. In a twist, the payroll deduction also violates the First Amendment right to free speech – according to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision (the horrible turn of events which helped put the fix in and bring about our current travails) which declared money to be speech. Even by that atrocious rationalization, Trump is trampling on our rights. Just because it is happening to someone else, it doesn’t mean it is not an attack on us all. An injury to one is an injury to all!
Unions are First Amendment organizations and Unions and their members must actively advocate and fight to protect all parts of the Amendment whether or not we agree with what is being said, who is saying it, or what, is being practiced or preached. We are not powerless. One of the greatest philosophers of the Twentieth Century, George Carlin, states “Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away.” We have to make sure no one can take them away. This is an existential prerogative! The First Amendment is the first because it protects all others which follow. Does any rational person believe an authoritarian government, once the First is neutralized, won’t come after the others? Does any rational person believe an authoritarian government would support the right to bare arms? Does any rational person believe that government would recognize the idea of illegal search and seizure? We already know their thoughts on birthright citizenship. These rights, and all the rest, will be on the executioner’s block. The Union rank and file cannot look away all while hoping they will be passed over because of who they voted for or hoping some politician or mythical “institutions” will stop these attacks on our rights. It is up to every person and every Union to use our First Amendment rights and, in Solidarity with all, raise our collective voices and become the leaders this time needs! They aren’t rights if someone can take them away. We must fight!
Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.