The tragic drowning of 27 migrants in the English Channel has brought home the misery and devastation facing refugees worldwide. Capitalism is horror without end. Only socialist revolution can bring down the borders and avert this catastrophe.

With the shambolic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan earlier this month, thousands of Afghans are now looking to flee the country. Faced with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis of their own making, politicians in the US and Europe are crying crocodile tears over the hardships faced by refugees, while nonetheless abandoning them to their suffering.

In this talk from the Revolution Festival 2019 in London, Niklas Albin Svensson (writer for In Defence of Marxism) discusses why revolutionaries must oppose any repression of migrants and refugees, and fight instead for workers of all countries to unite. In the wake of increasingly reactionary Tory immigration policy in Britain, a deepening migrant crisis in Europe and xenophobia resulting from the coronavirus epidemic, this speech is more relevant than ever.

600 people occupied the Pantheon in Paris last Friday (12 July) in protest at the repression of undocumented migrants, who face racism, terrible living and working conditions; and the constant spectre of detention centres and deportation. These activists of the “gilets noirs” (black vests) were demanding (among other things) that Prime Minister Édouard Phillipe grant them documents to legally live and work in France.

Xenophobia is perhaps the most consistent thread through British PM, Theresa May’s political career. Long before she became known as the Brexit prime minister – indeed, when she was still an ardent supporter of EU membership – she was the primary orchestrator of the Tory anti-migrant agenda. The Immigration Bill currently working its way through parliament will prove to be the crowning achievement of this divisive and cruel agenda.

This month was significant in Australian politics, because it was the first time since 1929 (a period of over 90 years) that the sitting government lost a vote in the House of Representatives. The vote was over Australia’s controversial immigration policy, and the bill – proposed by the opposition party and opposed by the government – would make it easier for sick refugees held offshore to enter the country for medical treatment.

It wasn’t long ago that Germany was considered one of the few countries with a stable political situation. On the surface at least, with high economic growth and a dominant position within Europe, everything seemed to be going well for the German ruling class. However, this stability is turning into its opposite.

The equivalent of a silent, unilateral war has been going on for years in the Mediterranean Sea. It is not a war in the traditional sense, because it lacks contending armies, but a war of the entrenched 'civilised world' against hundreds of thousands of unarmed people. Their only crime is a desperate attempt to flee poverty, unbearable living conditions and the destruction of their livelihoods in their home countries, and follow the dream of a better life for themselves and their families in Europe.

“The immigrants get all the jobs and houses, while the Italians - or British, or French… - get nothing! The government should think of Italians first - or British, or French first!” How many times do we hear this kind of thinking being hyped up by the TV and press, especially the gutter press, and right-wing demagogues?

The death of more than 800 people who drowned when a small fishing boat capsized 60 miles south of the Italian island of Lampedusa late on Saturday brings the death toll to of people among people attempting to reach Europe by boat in 2015 alone to 1,600. This tragic event highlights the dramatic situation that has developed in Africa and the Middle East after years of imperialist meddling.

Millions of US immigrants, their families, co-workers, friends, and supporters had their hopes for relief from their difficult conditions built up by advance hype for President Obama’s November 20 speech on immigration policy reform. All such hopes were cruelly shattered once the outlines of his policy shift became more clear—an outline with an ...

Although anti-immigration hysteria, racism and propaganda are nothing new to these shores, there is currently a particularly rabid hue-and-cry over immigration in Britain. It must be emphasised that this wave against immigration is artificially manufactured by the bourgeois media and parties. It is not a spontaneous reaction from below, and is currently fuelled in particular by the rise of UKIP, which in turn is a consequence of the bourgeoisie’s - and especially the Tory’s - insistence on banging the xenophobic drum for years now.

One of the most disgraceful aspects of Canadian labour policy has come under the spotlight after Canadian banking giant RBC recently sacked 45 workers within their information technology (IT) division, outsourcing those jobs to lower-waged workers from India.  What was supposed to be a minor shuffling of jobs has, instead, become a raging scandal that has exposed how far the capitalist class is willing to go to undermine workers’ wages and rights — and all of it openly supported by the federal government.

In the Spring of 2006, millions of immigrant workers flooded the streets of the United States to say “enough is enough!” The spark was an ultra-reactionary “immigration reform” bill sponsored by Wisconsin Republican Jim Sensenbrenner. But the frustration had built up for decades, as dangerous working conditions, low wages, discrimination, and the constant fear of raids and deportations reached the breaking point. The boundless energy and determination to fight overflowed the “safe” limits of the traditional immigrant rights and non-profit charities.

As part of their agenda of austerity and attacks on working-class people, the Conservative government is attempting to bring in major “reforms” to Canada’s system of immigration. During the last federal election campaign, Stephen Harper and his minister of immigration, Jason Kenney, tried hard to woo ethnic communities’ support to the Conservatives.  But now that the elections are over for a while, the Tories feel safe in attacking these same communities as part of the general war against workers.