Joint statement by communist youth organisations of the Americas, August 9, 2019 

The undersigned communist youth organisations of the Americas declare:

1. Our full solidarity with all young people and their families who have been forced to emigrate from their countries due to capitalism and its consequences. Month by month, thousands of young Central Americans and Mexicans are forced to risk their lives fleeing misery, unemployment, drug trafficking and state repression. This leads to an inhuman situation where migrants end up dead in the Usumacinta River or the Rio Grande, disappeared and kidnapped by cartels during their transit or detained by the National Guard in Mexico and the U.S. Border Patrol. One of the most tragic and emblematic cases is that of Salvadorian Alberto Martínez, who at 25 years of age died drowned with his baby while trying to cross the Rio Grande. Those who manage to overcome that hell, enter a new one in the United States and Canada, facing a stark exploitation without labor rights, persecuted, in many cases living in the shadow with the fear of being deported to their countries.

2. Our rejection of imperialism materialized through Free Trade Agreements, such as NAFTA-USMCA or CAFTA, which establish the free movement of capital and goods, but block the mobility of the labor force. Under this policy, the value of the labor force is pressed down in both the sending and receiving countries of migrants, and they are fueling the division of the working class. 3. Our combat and opposition to xenophobia, racism, chauvinism that is driven by some political forces of our respective countries, are aimed at dividing the working class and positioning the alliances and interests of the capitalists. To combat this ideology, we tell the youth of our countries: The working class is international! Our allies are the youth workers, peasants and popular sectors regardless of their nationality, pointing out that the enemy to defeat is the bourgeoisie and imperialism.

3. We denounce US imperialism, and its current representative Donald Trump, with his current onslaught against migrants. Deportations and detentions have escalated, leading to the extent of separating children from their families and caging them as animals. His xenophobic speech that accuses migrants of being criminals, has as its main objective to avoid the union of American workers, regardless of their immigration status. The US government does not intend to curb migration, but only to keep it in illegality, to keep them in the shadows and at every opportunity to reduce the value of their workforce and increase the profits of the capitalists who are the support of their government.
4. We denounce the immigration policy of the current Mexican government, directed by López Obrador, which has been gradually yielding to the blackmail of the Donald Trump administration, leaning in favor of Mexican export bourgeoisie against the threat of imposition of tariffs, using migrants as currency. Government of Obrador has deployed military forces, under the letterhead of the National Guard to contain and hunt Central American migrants trying to cross the country; significantly increasing deportations and limiting freedom of transit with checkpoints throughout the country to review immigration status. With this, the current Mexican government is turning this country into the new Wall longed for by Trump and US imperialism. We also denounce the role of the bourgeoisie and the Central American governments in the migration crisis, particularly in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. High levels of corruption and state repression strengthen the tendency towards migration caused by capitalist exploitation. In addition, they make agreements with US imperialism to restrict the emigration of their countries, such as the “third safe country” agreement signed by the government of Guatemala, which facilitates the expulsion of Hondurans and Salvadorans who seek asylum in the United States.

5. The signatory communist youth, we recognize the need to increase our exchange in the analysis of the conditions that hit our youth in the Americas, as well as the obligation we have to undertake activities, days of struggle that point to a coordination to fight against imperialism as the upper phase of capitalist development, and oppose the revolutionary exit, socialism-communism as the true and only alternative to barbarism.

Signatory organisations :

Communist Youth of Bolivia
Union of Communist Youth – Brazil
Young Communist League – Canada
Communist Youth of Ecuador
Communist Youth of El Salvador
League of Young Communists USA (LYCUSA)
Youth of the Guatemalan Labor Party
Federation of Young Communists – Mexico
Paraguayan Communist Youth
Communist Youth of Venezuela