Earlier this month, Virginia CPUSA members joined a coalition of organizations at an anti-ICE demonstration in Chantilly, Virginia, along Route 50. The site chosen for the protest sees an average of about 70,000 commuters every day.

Community members were protesting the inhumane conditions at the nearby Chantilly ICE facility and the disappearing of our neighbors, friends, coworkers, and families. Bearing signs that read, “It’s a beautiful day to melt some ICE” and “ICE is the new Gestapo,” gatherers listened to speakers organized by the Northern Virginia chapter of Standing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ).

Speakers described firsthand accounts of the detention center. One noted the cells are so crowded that there is not enough room for detainees to lay down to sleep. Others spoke about the racial and national oppression faced by Hispanic migrants and the cruelty of the prison industrial complex. They decried the cowardice of many elected Democrats who are capitulating to Trump. Calls to defund and abolish the police were met with cheers from the crowd.

A near continuous procession of dump trucks all honked in support as they drove towards the ICE facility. Hundreds of landscaping trucks, with their cabs full, honked and waved. Thousands of others showed their solidarity as they passed. It was a joyous atmosphere, and the community support was tangible.

ICE established, democracy chilled

It’s worth noting this September that today’s attack on immigrants grows directly out of former President George W. Bush’ so-called “Global War on Terror.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including ICE, was created in the wake of the 9/11 attack, along with the Patriot Act and the Authorization for Use of Military Force. The creation of DHS comprised the largest expansion of the federal government since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. The racist targeting of Arab American and Muslim American communities by ICE at that time was designed to whip up support for the criminal Iraq War. Greatly increased powers granted to the president to launch attacks on countries across the world without Congressional approval were accompanied by the erosion of civil rights at home.

Since then, ICE has been expanded to oppress many other communities of color. Imperialist policies abroad continue to be accompanied by attacks on democratic rights here at home. Currently, ICE is the largest federal enforcement agency, with more than 200 million people living within the 100-mile “border enforcement zone.” The use of ICE to terrorize large swaths of the working class continues the United States’ long history of using state violence to attack communities of color and repress working class movements. Trump’s sending of federal troops to multi-racial communities and Black-led cities is another case in point.

Our immediate interest

The labor movement and working class as a whole is under threat with these raids. Engels pointed out in 1878 that after the crushing of the Paris Commune, the working class “had but one immediate interest” — to avoid a “protracted reign of repression” and to obtain “a state of things permitting them to prepare for the final emancipatory struggle.” Engels maintained this included the right to establish a working-class press, the right to public agitation and meetings, and the right of the working class to create its own independent political party.

In 2025, the U.S. working class has suffered decades of defeats, notwithstanding a number of victories. Now we are fighting for the basic right of existence. The fight for liberation cannot begin without a fight against the immediate threat of repression.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020, the capitalist class has demonstrated its readiness to use increased brutality to maintain their ruling position in society. They may believe they can increase repression indefinitely without consequences. However, capitalism cannot avoid crises, and the contradictions that create them cannot go unresolved forever.

As U.S. imperialism faces growing challenges and crises — including the increasing danger of climate collapse — these moments of revolutionary fightback will become more frequent and the contradictions will sharpen. Our response is clear: we continue to organize.

“What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers,” Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto. As the last speaker at the Chantilly demonstration noted, this is just the beginning. MAGA’s billionaire-backed assault will get worse if we do not build a movement stronger than them.

Will you be ready to fight harder tomorrow?

Images: 1. ICE protest in Chantilly (Vernon Miles / FFX) 2. Photos curtesy of Phrenologyhead@bsky.social