[UNLOCKED] Immigration, ICE, and Working Class Rebellion w/ Cecilia Guerrero

24 snips

Jan 8, 2026

Cecilia Guerrero, Chair and founding member of A Luta Sigue, shares her insights as an organizer in Tennessee. She dives into the terror tactics of ICE and how mass deportations serve capitalist agendas. Cecilia highlights the role of imperialism in driving immigration and explains the exploitation faced by immigrant workers. She advocates for a united class struggle instead of a rights-based approach and discusses the revolutionary potential of immigrant labor. Her critique of liberal politics emphasizes the need for a dedicated workers' party to galvanize genuine change.

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INSIGHT

Deportations As Mass Layoffs

Mass deportations function like mass layoffs, intensifying immigrant precarity and suppressing worker organizing.
This tactic drives down wages and consolidates monopoly capital by making workers fearful and docile.

ANECDOTE

May Nightclub Ambush In Nashville

Cecilia describes a May operation where ICE, with Tennessee Highway Patrol, abducted dozens outside a South Nashville nightclub and via traffic stops.
The raids transported many to detention centers, showing high local cooperation between agencies and deliberate terror tactics.

INSIGHT

Terror Through Presence

ICE uses presence and selective raids to terrorize whole communities without always arresting people.
That psychological campaign targets workplaces and social spaces to deter strikes and organizing.

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Note: We have unlocked this Patreon episode which originally aired on Jun 23, 2025

It's easy to get lost in the narratives that are fed to us by the very same institutions that oppress us. Whether liberal institutions or far right ones, there's always something crucial missing—some component of analysis that's left unaddressed, some root cause that remains misidentified or distorted. And the reason is because when it comes to the class war that we are all engaged in—whether we like it or not—the issues of class, of imperialism, and of monopoly capitalism are never, ever part of the mainstream discussion.

So, what are the root causes of immigration? What do the ICE terror campaigns look like on the ground in cities like LA or Nashville? What happens when we apply a materialist lens to the conversation about mass deportations and conversation about the scapegoating of the more vulnerable groups in society? And what happens when we shift the frame from the more liberal, rights-based approach to activism to one based on unified, solidaristic class struggle? Well, we've brought back on the perfect guest to help us unpack some of these pressing questions.

Cecilia Guerrero is Chair and Founding Member of A Luta Sigue, an organization based in Nashville, Tennessee, which incubates and trains young people and workers within advanced sectors of the working class to build and lead their own class struggle organizations.

In this episode, we talk about the terror campaign being waged on immigrants throughout the country and the responses coming from working class communities who are standing up for themselves and standing in solidarity with the oppressed and exploited classes across the globe. We talk about ICE, the role that immigration plays in the imperialist global system, the attempts by liberal institutions to co-opt and neutralize our radical movements, and what the MAGA right gets wrong about the root cause of their immiseration.

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Artwork: CPSU propaganda poster

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