Photo: Students in Los Angeles walked out of class and marched through the streets in protest against the possible termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program

By Serran Soledad

Earlier this month, students from California State University (CSU) and Los Angeles Unified School District staged a walkout in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program as the Supreme Court approaches a verdict to either terminate or reinstate it.

Hundreds of students and workers mobilized in support of DACA, which provides renewable two year residency and work permits to undocumented children brought to the United States. Demonstrators marched through downtown Los Angeles and ended with a rally in MacArthur Park. Protesters carried signs with slogans like “End Family Detentions,” and “Dreamers, Not Criminals” in solidarity with immigrants.

Cientos de estudiantes marcharon en solidaridad con inmigrantes y en contra de la terminación de DACA Varios manifestantes cargan las banderas de países latinoamericanos

One prominent attendee at the protest was the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), a non-governmental organization (NGO) that specializes in providing legal immigration services, organizing protests, and “advocating in the halls of power for laws and government policies that benefit and include immigrants in the national conversation about the kind of nation we want to be.”

CHIRLA, like many other NGOs, regularly backs Democratic Party candidates and receives their support. This is the same bourgeois party that passed a multi-billion dollar anti-immigration bill earlier this year.

At the protest, a representative from CHIRLA said, “We rise against racism and for DACA today.” Democrats and NGOs incorrectly and opportunistically peddle racism as the sole factor of oppression against the immigrant population. By obscuring questions of national oppression and class, NGOs like CHIRLA attempt to absolve the Democratic Party from the role it plays in US imperialism, which is the primary cause of the ongoing immigration crisis.

The Democratic Party, particularly in California, allocates billions of tax dollars into temporary resources and public programs, in an attempt to soften the oppressive conditions created by their own fealty to US imperialism. These programs effectively function as counterinsurgency measures, serving to quell revolutionary potential among the masses and encouraging them to seek justice from bourgeois institutions and temporary solutions provided by NGOs like CHIRLA.

As Donald Trump threatens to cut DACA, he also stated that he would be open to a deal with Democrats that would allow recipients to stay. To Republicans and Democrats alike, the future of DACA recipients matters little as long as their party and personal interests come out on top, all in service to US imperialism.

Democrats, Republicans, and NGOs traffic in the struggle of the masses to serve their own interests. In the end, they all serve US imperialism whether it be by directly attacking immigrants or creating temporary solutions to hide the underlying causes of their oppression.