Under Lock & Key

On 17 March 2025 one of the U.S. propaganda arms of Imperialism “Voice of America” was shut down. This came after major cuts to USAID, which serves U.$. interests through aid to people in crisis situations in other countries. Of course any time any of the capitalist institutions is shut down it’s a good thing. But these institutions of “soft power” influence are being replaces with trade war in the form of massive tariffs, and possibly hot war with ramped up military spending.

Voice of America? Voice of Imperialism.

It was World War II which compelled the U.S. to create the “Voice of America” (VOA) after taking a page out of Nazi Germany’s radio propaganda outlets. The VOA was used to play propaganda radio programs to countries opposed to U.S. imperialism. Over the years VOA has funded and created various propaganda broadcasts such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and Radio Marti aimed at Cuba. VOA would essentially transmit U.S. propaganda at the targets with a goal to foment unrest, rebellions and to destabilize the targets. USAID, established in 1961, provides actual resources to influence conditions on the ground. Amerikans should keep this in mind when they get upset about Russian propaganda on the internet.

VOA often was used to promote and support opposition forces within a country that was targeted while spreading lies, disinformation and smear campaigns against those in power. No doubt countless lives were negatively affected if not lost to those who took directives or followed the advice from VOA in the decades it was in service. Perhaps we may never know the totality of damage that VOA is responsible for in its reign of terror. The Trump Administration has shut down the VOA citing it as having become “radical” and pushing liberal views. We believe there is more to it and it’s important that the Chican@ Nation understands what this shut down means.

On the one hand we welcome the death of VOA; however, to be honest, the VOA was no longer as vital to imperialism today as it was 80 years ago at the height of radio around the world. Today many of the targets that the U.S. focused is on have blocked access to VOA via internet or radio waves. It was no longer as accessible as it once was. Furthermore, the occupiers seek to harness resources for harsher forms of oppression. The radio waves today are also packed with white nationalist broadcasts, on radio and internet podcasts and other media in multitudes that the days of WWII never dreamed of. Indeed Goebbels would have soiled his pants in glee over the flood of white power media spewed out to the world from these false U.S. leaders. So in that sense eliminating the VOA was simply trimming the fat for the oppressor nation. The state has developed the white nationalists to an extent where they can now supplement the capitalist state allowing Amerikkka to reroute its resources. We as revolutionaries should glean the lesson in this, working harder to develop our independent institutions and the Chican@ masses while adjusting our resources to other much needed areas in our work.

Is the U.S. Tariff War Class Warfare?

Recently a bourgeois “journalist” asked a Trump official about the tariffs and how it’s “hurting” the economy. The capitalist politician said the tariffs were “class warfare” and that this warfare was being waged by the current administration on behalf of the working class. This of course is a gross distortion of the reality of what is taking place. What we are seeing is not class warfare. It is inter-imperialist rivalry where imperialists are fighting over resources, rare minerals and clout in the world. “Class War” is the furthest from the reality, if anything it’s the imperialist class fighting for who is going to exploit the proletariat of the world the most.

Political democracy in the United $tates is bourgeois in nature and one way that it survives another day is in fooling the masses into believing that it operates in their interests. It promotes the false narrative that it is fighting for equality for the people but true “equality” can only come when classes don’t exist, when capitalism – the very system which keeps the U.S. on life support– no longer exists. This is how ridiculous the U.S. bourgeois democracy is. But this is nothing new. Lenin spoke of the capitalists selling snake oil in the guise of democracy. This is because it lulls the masses into believing that the capitalist state is truly working in the people’s interests. Listening to the capitalist press (U.S. Corporate News Media) the masses believe in the propaganda that they do not need to engage in national liberation struggles because the colonizers are engaging in “Class War” and working towards equality. Aztlán will only be free as a class when we are free as a nation. Shutting down a propaganda arm or charging tariffs do not bring us one iota closer to national liberation. We don’t want money or lies, we want to be free!

MIM(Prisons) update: As we go to press Trump had put significant tariffs on goods coming into the United $tates from almost every other country, then quickly repealed them after bond markets became unstable (because other countries began to question the reliability of U.$. debt pay offs). The only new tariff increase the U.$. has maintained as we write this is on Chinese goods, which has triggered a tariff war between the United $tates and China. This is a war that Trump will not want to back down from, but China has less reason to back down since they are actually a self-sufficient economy.

Since the overthrow of socialism in China in 1976, the Chinese proletariat have been brought into the world capitalist system, becoming the source of much of the cheap goods (and surplus value) in the United $tates. As these economies became tightly intertwined over the last 50 years, the large proletariat in China has supported the smaller, but still significant, labor aristocracy consumer class in this country. The United $tates no longer produces enough to support its own people, even if we cut our consumption to more modest means. We have become a mall economy, where we buy and sell to each other the things that other countries make. While this system has been booming for decades, Trump is correct that this is not sustainable. The trade imbalances the Trump regime used to calculate the new tariffs notably excluded services, only accounting for trade deficits in goods. This is because Trump has been touting a plan to bring goods manufacturing back to the United $tates by forcing other countries to invest here.

It’s interesting to watch Amerikan social fascists, who for decades have lamented the loss of “good manufacturing jobs” to China suddenly be worried about becoming slaves in computer chip factories. They seem to now admit the truth that to destroy the relationship with China will lead to a significant reduction in capitalist trade and profits globally in the short term, as well as the ability of Amerikans to enjoy the consumption levels that we have enjoyed since WWII.

The United $tates has been preparing for war with China for years as this economic relationship has supported their continued rise to a technologically advanced super power. You cannot have imperialism without the contradictions between nations. And that includes the contradiction between the exploiter and exploited nations as well as between the imperialist nations themselves (such as the U.$. and China). Since there are no more non-capitalist countries to pull into this exploitative system, the expansion of finance capital is reaching its limits. Trump’s pulling back from tariffs on most countries indicates a disagreement among the imperialists on how to proceed. But at this point the only way for the imperialists to create the opportunity for expansion that the collapse of Chinese socialism offered is the destruction of capital via massive war. A war that the U.$. military and other imperialist militaries are ramping up for. Such a war poses a great threat to all people of the world, but especially those in the imperialist core who have been insulated from war for many decades. The only wars we support and will serve in is the wars for national liberation and for socialism of those under the boot of imperialism.

Intensificando la amenaza de pandillas peligrosas con “súperpredadores.” Usando informantes confidenciales, tatuajes, y apariencia para catalogar personas como “pandilleros.” Usando esa conexión de pandilla para encarcelar y torturar a la gente. Estos métodos draconianos son familiares a lectores de ULK, y para esos que han pasado tiempo en cárceles estadounidenses en general. El régimen de Trump ha echo esta noticia para el país entero.

En las semanas recientes, cientos de venezolanos han sido deportados de los Estados Unidos a una megacarcel en El Salvador. El régimen de Trump ha justificado esto con La Ley de Enemigos de 1798, que permite la deportación de no ciudadanos durante tiempo de guerra, y fue usado durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial para deportar los alemanes y italianos y juntar los japoneses en campos de internamiento, apoderándose de sus activos para los euro-amerikanos. Trump reclamo que estas personas fueron parte de una pandilla conduciendo “guerra irregular” en los Estados Unidos, pero no hay evidencia que Tren de Aragua es una organización amplia y funcional aquí. En febrero, el Departamento de Estado estadounidense designaron Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), y una lista de carteles mexicanas como “organizaciones terroristas extranjeras.”

Una corte federal ha ordenado una pausa a estas deportaciones, pero el Departamento de Justicia esta desafiando la orden. Una batalla legal continua, mientras el poder ejecutivo continua a desafiar las cortes.

Venezuela ha sido un objetivo consistente del imperialismo estadounidense desde que obtuvo poder Hugo Chávez en 1999.(1) De resultado casi 600,000 venezolanos han sido aceptados en los Estados Unidos con Estatus Protegido Temporario (TPS). Trump intento a cancelar el TPS para los venezolanos, pero una corte federal ha determinado eso como un acto ilegal. Sin el TPS, muchos de Venezuela, Haití, Ucrania, Sudán, Afganistán y otros lugares no podrían continuar a trabajar en los Estados Unidos legalmente y podrían ser deportados legalmente.

Kilmar Armando Ábrego García esta recibiendo atención especial de que la administración de Trump admitió que su deportación fue un error, y que no lo pueden regresar de la custodia salvadoreña. Esto es a pesar de que había una orden del la corte que prevenía su regreso a El Salvador, donde se había escapado de violencia pandillera cuando era joven. Ábrego García no tiene cargos criminales, si sirve de algo, pero fue catalogado como un miembro de MS-13 por un cerdo mencionando un “informante confidencial” cuando estaban acorralando trabajadores hace algunos años. Como resultado, Ábrego García ha sido desaparecido de su familia y mandado a una unidad de tortura en el mero país que huyo por razones de seguridad.(2)

El ACLU obtenido una copia del “Alien Enemy Validation Guide” siendo usado para deportaciones. Después de establecer que alguien es mayor de los 14 años, de origen Venezolano y sin ciudadanía estadounidense, un sistema de puntuación es usado para “validar” pandilleros. Un tatuaje de “TdA” te da 4 puntos mientras 8 puntos son requeridos para calificar como validado. La guiá del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional muestra una lista de imágenes de tatuajes como coronas y estrellas que son “TdA”. También, poniéndote mercancía de los Chicago Bulls y Michael Jordan está en la lista. Cuando fue la ultima vez que has visto alguien con un tatuaje de una estrella y portando Air Jordans?

Persiguiendo Activistas Estudiantiles

Instituciones educacionales desde Universidad de Columbia en Nueva York hasta es sistema de la Universidad de California están esforzando la represión fascista en sus campos, de expulsando estudiantes durante la presidencia de Biden, a haciéndolos desaparecer de las calles y de sus hogares bajo el régimen de Trump. Estudiante de Tufts University Rümeysa Öztürk esta detenida por escribiendo un articulo criticando el genocidio en Palestina causado por los Estados Unidos y Israel y el campamento estudiantil propalestina el año pasado, contó su historia en una declaración reciente del 18 de Marzo 2025:

“Me llamo Mahmoud Khalil y soy un preso político. Les escribo desde un centro de detención en Luisiana… Fui detenido el 8 de marzo por unos agentes del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés). Se negaron a aportar una orden judicial y nos abordaron a mi esposa y a mí de manera agresiva cuando regresábamos de cenar.…

“Mi detención fue una consecuencia directa de ejercer mi derecho a la libre expresión, ya que abogaba por una Palestina libre y el fin del genocidio en Gaza; genocidio que se reanudó con fuerza el lunes por la noche. Con el acuerdo de alto al fuego que se pactó en enero ya roto, los padres y madres de Gaza vuelven a mecer mortajas minúsculas en sus brazos y las familias se han visto obligadas a escoger entre la hambruna y el desplazamiento forzoso o las bombas. Es nuestro imperativo moral persistir en la lucha por su libertad absoluta.”

“[La Universidad de] Columbia me fichó por mi activismo y abrió una dictatorial oficina disciplinaria con el fin de saltarse el debido proceso y silenciar a los estudiantes criticando a Israel. Columbia ha cedido ante las presiones estatales, proporcionando expedientes académicos de sus estudiantes al Congreso y acatando las últimas amenazas de la administración de Trump. Algunos ejemplos claros de esto son mi detención, así como la expulsión o suspensión de al menos veintidós estudiantes de la Columbia —algunos despojados de sus títulos pocas semanas antes de graduarse— y la expulsión de Grant Miner, presidente del sindicato Estudiantes Trabajadores de Columbia (SWC, por sus siglas en inglés), en la víspera de las negociaciones contractuales.”

“En todo caso, mi detención es un testimonio de la fuerza del movimiento estudiantil para cambiar la opinión pública hacia la liberación palestina…” (4)

Otros estudiantes que han sido perseguidos se han escondido. A la misma vez, estudiantes por todas partes del país están uniéndose para apoyar y defender los que puedan ser destacados después. Elogiamos la solidaridad que estamos viendo. Escuelas y prisiones son realmente únicos en nuestra sociedad dado de las identidades de sus poblaciones y sus habilidades a organizar. Con los anuncios recientes del régimen de Trump que van a deportar ciudadanos estadounidenses con récord criminal al Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo en El Salvador, prisioneros tienen que estar preparados para confrontar el enemigo juntos en la manera que lo están aprendiendo a hacer los estudiantes. Aunque hay muchos ejemplos recientes que dice lo contrario, hay una historia larga de prisioneros estadounidenses apoyándose debido a la consciencia del grupo que viene con confrontando un opresor común cada día.

Fascismo De Regreso a su Hogar

Los Estados Unidos ha usado el régimen de aislamiento de largo plazo por décadas a un nivel no visto en cualquier otra parte en la historia humana. Médicos para los Derechos Humanos (PHR por sus siglas en inglés) salieron con un reporte en 2024 exponiendo el uso del régimen de aislamiento en los centros de detención en contra de las direcciones del gobierno para limitar su uso cuando es absolutamente necesario. Documentaron alrededor de 14,000 casos de personas siendo puestas en aislamiento por ICE de 2018 a 2023. El régimen de aislamiento tardaba por un promedio de 27 días, con 42 casos tardando mas de un año. En 2024, ICE detuvo mas de 35,000 personas, ahora siendo el sistema de detención inmigratoria mas grande del mundo.(5)

Condiciones probablemente son peor para los que son transferidos a El Salvador, donde el Presidente Bukele ha declarado que la única manera que los pandilleros pueden salirse del Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) que construyo en 2023 sera en un cajón. Con una capacidad de mas de 40,000, hay 65 a 70 prisioneros mantenidos en cada celda. “Prisioneros de CECOT no reciben visitas y nunca están permitidos a salir. La prisión no ofrece talleres o programas educativas para prepararlos a regresar a la sociedad después de sus sentencias.”(6) Bukele ha estado promocionando fotos de pandilleros con la cabeza rasurada, vestidos de todo blanco, siendo maltratados por guardas enmascarados por linea desde que abrieron la prisión. Esta campaña de propaganda ha apelado a los elementos profascista de Amerika. Y con ese apoyo, Trump esta incorporando esta prisión en el sistema internacional de prisiones amerikanas y mandando cienes de personas ahí de los Estados Unidos. Este es un cambio cerca de la casa del interconexión de sitios oscuros, y prisiones famosas como Abu Ghraib y Guantánamo, que fueron usados para torturar y aguantar preso sin juicio personas oprimidas al través del mundo Musulmán.

La mayoría de la prensa están reportando que los amerikanos pagaron $6 millón dólares para que 238 prisioneros sean puestos en CECOT, que algunos señalan que es mucho menos de lo que costaría a encarcelarlos en los Estados Unidos. Pero es una cantidad que va a ayudar El Salvador inmensamente para que puedan fundar su monstruosidad de cárcel. No tiene sentido que los imperialistas están pagando para que aguanten a estos prisioneros, pero después reclamen que no pueden regresar personas como Ábrego García de regreso a sus familias.

En los 1980s, los Escuadrones de La Muerte patrocinados por los Estados Unidos, entrenados en la Escuela de las Américas en Georgia, mataron y desplazaron muchas personas en América Central que estaban luchando por el socialismo y por poder sacar el imperialismo de sus países.(7) Muchos niños de esta guerra en El Salvador fueron desplazados a Los Angeles donde se unieron a Barrio 18 o crearon la nueva Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), fueron perseguidos por el estado, y después mandados a regreso a El Salvador. Reportamos sobre los esfuerzos en haciendo paz entre estos grupos en 2013, que coincide con la inversión por USAID y el desarrollo de las prisiones en El Salvador inspiradas por los Estados Unidos.(8) Pero las condiciones para la gente de El Salvador no mejoraron, y votaron por el Presidente Nayib Bukele que utilizo las organizaciones lumpen en su organización política y después los traiciono como un chivo expiatorio por el mal del país en una campaña fascista de represión.(9)

La lucha contra el fascismo en este país depende en la reunión de personas para defender las poblaciones migrantes y estudiantes que están siendo atacados en este momento. En cuanto el fascismo continué a subir, vemos las campañas de grupos como el ACLU acercándose mas a los de MIM(Prisons). Mientras están pasando batallas legales importantes, también vemos el reconocimiento extendiendo que no podemos depender en las cortes para que nos salven. Debemos de tener un plan B. Debemos de crear nuestro plan B.

<sup>Notas:
1. Soso of MIM(Prisons), January 2019, Imperialists Push Coup in Venezuela to Secure Oil for Amerikans, Under Lock & Key 67.
2. Democracy Now!, 2 April 2025.
3. https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2025-03-31/ice-tren-de-aragua-venezuela-deportation-el-salvador
4. https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/a-letter-from-palestinian-activist-mahmoud-khalil
5. Physicians for Human Rights, 6 February 2024, https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2025-03-31/ice-tren-de-aragua-venezuela-deportation-el-salvador.
6. Aleman & Cano, 17 March 2025, “What to know about El Salvador’s mega-prison after Trump sent hundreds of immigrants there”, Los Angeles Times.
7. MIM(Prisons), June 2009, FBI Arrests Peacemaker, Under Lock & Key 9.
8. MIM(Prisons), March 2013, One-Year Anniversary of Peace Treaty in El Salvador, Under Lock & Key 31.
9. Badgreen of MIM(Prisons), September 2023, 8,000 Military and Police Deployed in Cabanas Province, El Salvador, Under Lock & Key 83.</sup>

One of the foremost promises of the Trump/Vance campaign was a crackdown on gender expression and transgender existence in the United $tates; we are now watching this being carried out. On his first day in office, Donald Trump signed Executive Order (E.O.) 14168 against “gender ideology”, and, as most changes under his administration, the effects of this order strike most harshly at the oppressed masses – in this case, prisoners in particular. This executive order states that it “shall ensure males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers.” Though its ramifications are being fought in courts, people behind bars have already seen changes play out for trans and gender-non-conforming prisoners. The Trump regime has also instructed amendments to the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) to remove special protection for gender non-conforming people in prisons, as ineffective as PREA has been.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, there are about 2200 transgender people in the feds, which is about 1.5% of federal prisoners. Of those, only 20 are trans wimmin in wimmin’s prisons. While over 1500 trans wimmin are held in men’s prisons. A prisoner in FCI-Waseca reports that the 2 trans wimmin at that facility were immediately packed out to go to men’s facilities, but one was returned a week later.(Ultra Violet Vol. XXXVI, No.4, Spring 2025) The courts have issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the E.O., and multiple lawsuits have been filed. Anyone interested in contacting the lawyers who have filed the class action lawsuit (which covers all transgender people in the BOP) against the executive order can write:

As the basis for gender oppression is located in free time, and as prisons seek to control prisoners’ free time to a degree rarely seen elsewhere in this country, MIM(Prisons) identifies the struggles of trans prisoners as a particularly sharp form of gender oppression. Furthermore, as prisons reinforce the segregation of already-oppressed people along “sexed” lines, gender diversity – especially among trans wimmin – is punished both legally and extralegally behind bars. These punitive measures have only heightened under the new administration, and MIM(Prisons) surveyed trans prisoners regarding the recent changes.

A trans womyn at FCI Seagoville responded:

“The staff under our previous warden told the transgender prisoners that we were to turn in all our dresses, blouses, bras and panties to laundry and send our commissary-bought undergarments home. That lasted a day and then the same staff told us about the E.O. stated that there was a judicial claim that rescinded the order, therefore, go to laundry and get your clothes back. That lasted about a month, then the warden left under the Trump ‘federal buy out.’ Our new interim warden took our items away, stating unless we were part of the TRO, then she could take our items. Then said if we return our clothes ‘without a fuss,’ we could keep our hormones… for now.

“We had a laser hair treatment machine and then after the E.O. came out, it just up and disappeared. All our transgender programs, including our psychology lead support group, have been eliminated.

“A trans woman has been on suicide watch ever since she was told to turn in her girl clothes. Staff let her out after 2 weeks, sent her to laundry. The supervisor there said ‘you are a man, in a man’s prison, therefore you will wear man clothes.’ She went to psychology, where they basically told her that ‘we can’t help you.’ She went back on suicide watch and is still there.

“The transgender women here decided to hold our own support group out on the recreation yard. That lasted about 3 weeks, until the interim warden shut it down supposedly because drugs were found on the yard.”

The imposition of gender as a repressive system is clear here, with the confiscation of clothes items, and the forceful insistence that one of the girls discussed “is a man in a man’s prison”. These prison staff taking glee in sexually, verbally, and physically attacking these trans prisoners on the basis of gender are undoubtedly gender oppressors (see MIM Theory 2/3: Gender and Revolutionary Feminism).

With regards to the shutting down of the support group, we see these repressive tactics wielded against any group of prisoners that poses a threat to the system. More often, we see these slanderous lies about drugs and crackdown on free time wielded against political organizers, but clearly the prison administration sees trans wimmin discussing their lives and struggles as something dangerous. We would love to exchange ideas around gender with this group and others and offer the pages of ULK as an organizing space as you struggle to keep your local group functioning.

In FCI Seagoville, local USW comrades are helping organize the transgender wimmin incarcerated there. The linking of the struggle for transgender rights to the movement for broader solidarity in prisons is excellent, and we hope that the comrades there continue to build broad unity.

A trans man from FMC Carswell was not able to fully respond to our survey:

“I was just released from suicide watch 3 days ago. Things are hard and oppressive as well as slanderous but I’ll speak on these things when I’m in the right headspace.”

Ey went on to forward us documents regarding a legal case ey’s filing against the designated wimmin’s prison, telling us that the Trump administration’s decree that trans prisoners cannot access transgender medical or mental health services has led to eir self-injurious tendencies worsening, and that ey is suing on the grounds that they are not giving em proper treatment to keep em safe.

The willingness to take away services at the risk of peoples’ lives exposes the inhumanity of this system. Gender oppression is a system and until we destroy it people will be subject to such treatment.

A trans womyn from USP Tucson reported:

“[The prison guards are] glad that [the executive order] is being done so that they can stop all this… We used to only be able to be pat down by female guards, now that’s gone and male guards can touch us like that!”

This E.O. further drives home how what we understand as “gender” – that is, one’s relation to gendered oppression – is neither defined solely by chromosomes, nor biological sex, nor identity. Certainly, strip searches and cavity searches are sexually violating, and are a form of gendered violence that people face by the very fact of being a prisoner of the United $tates. We wholeheartedly stand with this comrade in agreement that the imposition of male guards on trans wimmin is dangerous and shows how this executive order has nothing to do with “safety.”

However, we’d like to solicit input both from this womyn and from any other prisoners reading, regarding whether having strip searches by female guards is less violating. We have printed many reports and statistics exposing the role of female staff in gender oppressing prisoners.(see ULK No. 1) So we think there’s more to do to stop sexual assault.

This comrade from Tucson also reported that there are 25 to 32 other transgender wimmin in eir prison, and that ey has been taking charge in helping to keep them all calm. Solidarity between prisoners is a necessary first step for the struggle for a world free of all forms of oppression. Sanity and solidarity are necessary in this time, but ultimately are useless without a clear understanding of the ways to fight back (both in the short term – grievances, petitions, legal suits – and in the long term, fighting for a classless, and thus gender-oppression-less, world). Can you turn your support group into a study group, or a group designated to supporting each others’ grievance campaigns, work/hunger strikes, etc.? Make contact with USW members to organize with them, as the wimmin in Seagoville have done, or join USW? We can think of no better way to support each other than to stand up for each other.

If Trump’s recent executive orders have shown us anything, it’s that concessions from the bourgeoisie towards oppressed people – trans healthcare, media representation, things like that – can be taken away just as quickly as they are granted. Oppression against trans people represents the cutting edge of gender-based oppression in the United $tates today, and trans prisoners are feeling it the most sharply.

Nobody is made safer by commissaries no longer carrying makeup and bras, or by prisoners being denied even the right to choose the name they use. The gender-oppressors in this country are by and large united around a reactionary return to “biological gender.” Just as there’s no such thing as “human nature” abstracted away from society, there’s no such thing as “biological gender” in a vacuum. No humyn is born biologically predisposed to desire makeup and small underwear, nor is a human born biologically predisposed to cut their hair short. Gender is a complex system almost entirely social in nature, and MIM(Prisons) defends those attacked by reactionaries who have at the heart of their attacks not “safety” or “logic” but a lashing out at the erosion of the hetero-patriarchal nuclear family.

For understandings of gender that go beyond the crude male-female hierarchical binary the state would impose, we advise reading MIM Theory 2/3, and Engels’s Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. And see our resolution on Attacking the Myth of Binary Biology: MIM(Prisons) Eliminates Gendered Language. We would love to correspond more with any other prisoners, but especially trans and queer ones, and discuss our thoughts on what “gender” actually is.

In a world free from oppression, what would gender look like? We don’t know for sure. What we do know, though, is that deviations from the rigid, Euro-Amerikan-centered, patriarchal gender system would see space to flourish rather than being punished as they are in the United $tates.

The current rollback on transgender rights is alarming and dangerous, but we can’t get caught up in simply attacking one axis of oppression without attacking the whole thing – the dominance of the oppressor class, epitomized in the world today by imperialism and in the United $tates by national oppression (of which incarceration is a significant part). Joining the anti-imperialist movement is the fastest path to ending oppression of all people.

I would like to clarify terms or, perhaps better stated, to give solidity to concepts. Those of us in these revolutionary spaces tend to preach to those who are already converted who don’t need convincing. We become a sort of revolutionary ghetto developing our own lingo so that we become isolated and our movements incognito. An essential part of any resistance is the ability to reach people, the common people, where they are, and to do that they have to know what we’re talking about. So, what does it even mean to protest? To resist? What is the best way to deal with oppression? The proletariat (common people) need to know.

Protesting usually takes the form of taking to the streets en masse to express grievance about an issue. An archaic definition of the word is “to make known”, which protesting excels at, getting the word out. The problem with this tactic is that it is the only tactic people, the masses, are familiar with. Protesting is temporal in nature, it cannot last forever, and every oppressor knows this. People come out, make a lot of noise, but ultimately go home and go back to regular life. Moreover, in the United States there are rules on how citizens are allowed to protest, because protests have to be “peaceful” and “lawful”. Note: anytime an authority is telling you how to “resist” them it is because they know it will not work. Can a movement be effective while following the rules of the oppressor? Any movement that tries to be peaceful, unoffensive or otherwise not disruptive is still-born in its inception. By nature, resistance is not peaceful. It will offend, and it must disrupt the actions of those who seek to oppress you. Protesting is a viable tactic, but we must recognize its limits.

Resistance is something different than a mere protest. Resistance makes an all-out effort against whatever power is creating the negative condition under which the people suffer. It does not marry itself to a singular strategy or tactic. Rather, resistance is “by any means necessary”. It can pick one tactic, use it, then switch to another tactic. Resistance has the flexibility to change according to circumstance. Resistance also has no time limit. It can last for months, years and even generations before victory is won. Case in point: NATO, which contains some of the world’s most powerful militaries, occupied Afghanistan for 21 years. When they pulled out in 2021, the Taliban, which had been resisting occupation for decades against military superpowers, took the country within the month. From this example we can learn some essentials of resistance. (1) It has no time limit. (2) There must be the belief that victory is possible. (3) It must come from ideology, not a mere trend. And (4), perhaps the most important, resistance comes from self-sacrifice. When you make the decision to align yourself against oppressive systems, take stock of the cost. Know that your movement may well out-live you. You must believe what you’re fighting for is not only righteous but also possible. The movement may cost you time, money, status, relationships, even your life or your freedom. You may not live to see the good you’re fighting for be actualized. Will you put in the work anyway? For the sake of future generations? If you are not able to pay the costs, this is not the right place for you. Self-sacrifice is not for everyone. “Revolutionary suicide” was the phrase the founder of the Black Panther Party coined.

Power does not lose its grasp willingly. Power wants to proliferate itself, to maintain its experience of control. It will not let go without a fight. If you’re willing to keep resisting, not just merely making noise in protest, then there is room at the table for you. And if you’re serious about tomorrow’s work you will start wherever you are, with whatever you have, today.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with the righteous call of Fred Hampton, “I am the proletariat, I’m not the pig”, as we too fight in the interests of the international proletariat. However, today we’d say the vast majority of people in this country are not of the proletariat, and this is important for understanding the class interests around us and how to organize those around us to be in line with the proletariat, who are mostly located in Third World countries. Other than that we whole-heartedly agree with this comrade’s words.

18 February 2025 – There is a report from Zambia of the collapse of a tailings dam that held acidic waste from a copper mine.(1) The collapse released millions of liters of waste containing concentrated acid, dissolved solids and heavy metals into a stream connected to the Kafue River in Zambia. China is the dominant player in copper mining in Zambia. China uses the copper in smartphones and other technology. The devastating consequences of this environmental catastrophe include the widespread killing of aquatic life in the river, contamination of water used for industrial and agricultural operations as well as polluting the drinking water of some five million people in Zambia. Chinese-owned copper mines have been accused of ignoring safety, labor and other regulations in their imperialist pursuit of earth minerals such as copper in Zambia. China is using classic imperialist tactics such as the exporting of capital to secure minerals and other resources by promoting development programs that put countries such as Zambia in debt to them. Zambia is reportedly more than $4 billion in debt to China. Zambians have already defaulted on payments in 2020 to other nations as well. Clearly we have another case of Chinese state-run corporations operating without regards to humyn life or the environment.

In conclusion, as a voice in the anti-imperialist movement I encourage comrades to realize it is not just Amerikans or Europeans who build their wealth and higher standards of civilization through the manipulation of underdeveloped nations. We stand against all nations that are imperialist! Nations we should be also speaking about in ULK. Nations such as China, Russia and Iran. I mention Iran because the spread of Islam is also a form of imperialism. Religion has been the reason for uncounted billions of people who suffer mentally, physically and even face death. Something that should be more deeply explored in ULK articles.

Charlie of AIPS responds: Orko is right when ey says that China is an imperialist country. We have no disagreements there. Nor do we disagree with eir statement that we should “stand against all nations that are imperialist”. So why do we focus on the imperialism of the U.$. in our work? Because anti-imperialism is a question of political line, while our political work is mediated by the strategies and tactics we undertake. If you are not familiar with this terminology from the MIM(Prisons)-ran study groups, let me rephrase. Anti-imperialism is a fundamental stance that we require others to hold if we are to collaborate with them. We will not waver on this point. But as we move beyond the fundamentals, we must consider the particulars of our unique political situation. We operate within the strongest imperialist country that has ever existed in humyn hystory: the United $tates. Our work can have no other aim, then, than to grow and strengthen the existing Communist movement that resides within the $tates. We must also acknowledge that one of the hallmarks of “patriotic” attitudes in the U.$. is criticizing the imperialism of other countries while defending the imperialism of the $tates. You can observe this yourself in seeing how united Democrats and Republicans are in denouncing countries such as China, Russia and Iran. As supporters of the international Communist movement, we must distinguish ourselves and our politics from the bourgeoisie and their lackeys. How is this distinction to be made if we simply echo their points on foreign affairs (though, admittedly, with more theoretical backing)?

On the note of religion, we must mention that religion, while fundamentally idealist and antithetical to Marxism, has a dual character. This is to say, religion can be used both for reactionary ends as well as for revolutionary ends. Palestine is the perfect encapsulation of this. The U.$.-backed Zionist entity termed “I$rael” uses religious arguments to justify their brutal murder and oppression of Palestinians. On the other side, revolutionary groups such as Hamas are inextricably linked to religion through their Islamic beliefs. The key is to consider the particularities of the situation at hand: Which nations are involved? Which classes? Which side, if any, is revolutionary at this time? Which groups are tied to religious movements, and how are these movements connected to the previous questions? To write off religion as a whole would be an error given the reality that it can be wielded for revolutionary means.

This all being said, we heartily welcome the contributions in this article from comrade Orko. It is well-worth noting that the logic of capitalist-imperialist countries all over the world follow the same general trends as outlined by V. I. Lenin in eir groundbreaking work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. But so long as our practice is confined to the borders of the U.$., that is where our focus must lie.

MIM(Prisons) adds: As Charlie mentions, we use the term imperialism to refer to the highest stage of capitalism as described by Lenin. The forcible spread of Islam and Christianity hundreds of years ago predated imperialism. And to use the history of Islam to call Iran imperialist today makes no sense. During the invasion of Afghanistan by the United $tates, pseudo-feminists made the same claim about the Taliban being “imperialist”, therefore justifying the murder of Afghan civilians (including wimmin), via their islamaphobia. Currently Iran and China are primary targets of Amerikans threats. A war with either will likely mean a global inter-imperialist war. This is not in the interests of the international proletariat. Nor is it in the interests of oppressed nations on occupied Turtle Island who will also face increased attacks when Amerikan nationalism is stoked.

^{Notes: (1) “A river ‘died’ overnight in Zambia after an acidic waste spill at a Chinese-owned mine” Associated Press, 15 March 2025.}

Triggers

Addiction does not develop overnight, nor does recovery. Addiction can be devastating to not only the user who is addicted but eir friends and family. In fact, addiction is a cultural phenomenon because it is not specific to any particular race, gender, age, or class. It is developed in the home through parents or family members who are addicts, through friends, TV, music, and other observable things in our environment. It is in every community, in every country, and on every continent. The irony is that as much support as there is for an addict’s recovery, that recovery does not come overnight. In fact, reportedly those who do enter recovery programs have a 60 to 80% chance of relapse before achieving permanent recovery! This is something I have experienced first hand, and I am here to talk to those comrades who put addicts like myself down. To them I offer the following challenge: instead of doing nothing but complaining about addicts, start a recovery group. This would be something more truly revolutionary! Because bitching about it does nothing to help an addict nor have you said anything to persuade me to want to change.

To them I say, “Yeah I’m an addict,” my addiction began in my home. My father smoked cigarettes and kept a supply of liquor under the counter in our kitchen. Drinking was a casual event with family and friends, usually on holidays. I also observed these similar behaviors through TV shows, movies, and commercials. As I grew into a teenager, I heard numerous music lyrics referencing drinking and using various kinds of drugs ranging from marijuana to heroin to cocaine to prescription drugs. Though I was told by my parents, family, and drug programs such as D.A.R.E. to stay away from these things, TV and my experience taught me something different. It looked like everyone on TV was feeling good and having fun and from my experience, it was and did most of the time make me feel good. In fact, it made me feel so much better when I was experiencing loneliness, stress, and conflict at home and within the family, boredom, anger, unrealized feelings of being trapped, depression, and more.

I’ve listed below what are commonly known as “triggers”. There are 10 major triggers I will identify here that can be associated and experienced by most humyn beings through some stage of eir life and not just addicts. For me the following 10 major triggers have not only been a part of my first experiences with drugs and alcohol but especially my relapse and effects of being imprisoned for over 25 years.

The Ten Major Triggers

1. Loneliness (even in the physical presence of family and friends)

2. Stress and conflict at home and within the family

3. Boredom or, in other words, lack of meaningful activities or challenging work

4. Anger and the feelings of being trapped (i.e. accumulated resentments, etc.)

5. Depression (worse with women than men)

6. Spirituality, or feeling like life is meaningless without a higher power

7. Secret disappointment with the straight life

8. Euphoric recall of being high

9. Secret thoughts of drugging or experimenting with a new and different chemical or drug

10. Reactive denial to using or thoughts of it

I was never taught any fundamental coping skills to combat these triggers throughout my life growing up at home or school. Even the coping skills I did learn in recovery groups didn’t seem to work. These feelings and thoughts seemed to always effect me no matter what. I also found out addiction is also something that can be hereditary and generational. What does this mean for my persynal recovery? I do not know, but my current struggle is real and I can not experience recovery by myself. So if you are an addict and not just an addict who is addicted to drugs and alcoholic but are under the definition of the United Struggle from Within Revolutionary 12 Step Program, then I want you comrades to listen. Not only you comrades but especially the comrades who do nothing but bitch about us addicts who use K2, suboxone, and whatever else as defined by the comrades who came together to create the Revolutionary 12 Step Program. I want you all to join me in my recovery, in our recovery, together.

P.S. This kept me from using so far today.

MIM(Prisons) responds: The Revolutionary 12 Step Program pamphlet has been one of our most frequently distributed publications in recent years. Unfortunately the main author and comrade who was training others to lead the program has not continued this work. For now we hope to continue the conversation, development and promotion of revolutionary recovery here in the pages of ULK. As comrade Menlo suggests, we want to create a community here through our readers’ own stories of recovery. And we thank comrade Orko and comrade Menlo for kicking this off.

Another publication we want to recommend to those working around recovery (whether you yourself are addicted or those around you) is Under Lock & Key No. 59. You can just ask us for the “drug issue” of ULK. It gives some deeper historical and sociological background on the fighting of addiction in the revolutionary movement.

As Orko explains above, addiction is a product of our environment. That is why when communists seized power in China they were able to eliminate almost all addiction in short time. And it is why people who had been life long addicts suddenly quit to join revolutionary organizations in the United $tates during the Black Power movement. The hope, meaning and empowerment that comes with revolutionary organizing is key to the success of our own revolutionary recovery programs.

In anticipation of some responses we might get to this article, we’d like to ask Orko and other readers for ideas on how to reach those stuck on drugs. We hear from a lot of readers who say they are surrounded by zombies, and feel like there is no way to reach such people because they are always high. What can be done to shift this reality and reach those in need?

In February and March the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) underwent a multi-week lock down, imposing terrible conditions on prisoners, including a pause to all visitations, deprivation of food and medical care, and riots in two prisons. During the strike at least 7 prisoners died, one of which was beat to death by staff just as Robert Brooks was. Other deaths seem to be the result of medical neglect from the information released so far. As of writing visitation has apparently resumed, but otherwise bourgeois media has not clearly reported to what extent the lockdown has ended yet, nor have our readers in New York. This situation was caused in part by a wildcat pig strike lasting from February 17 to March 11th which began due to alleged concerns about under-staffing and “working” conditions for correctional officers, namely increased violence towards staff.(1)

Regarding the second death by beating, a comrade reports:

“Just got the 411 on the killing of the prisoner at Mid-State C.F. The first state police who conducted the investigation lied in their report that the prisoner died of an overdose of K2. But the body was too badly beaten to death for that to stick. …The first investigator was moved from his post and transferred but not fired. Crazy!”

As we go to press, 10 more guards have been indicted for the murder of Messiah Nantwi in Mid-State C.F., which is across the street from Marcy C.F. As a writer to ULK pointed out in March, the strike came right after the indictment of ten NY pigs over the earlier murder of prisoner Robert Brooks on 9 December 2024.(2) The New York Focus reported a trend of C.O.s refusing to work, in protest against being held accountable for abuse:

“In 2013, New York City corrections officers (C.O.s) responsible for transporting people from Rikers Island stopped working the day an incarcerated person was supposed to testify about a caught-on-video beating he endured at the hands of guards, who were later acquitted. Two years later, DOCCS corrections officers staged a work slowdown after the prison agency tried to fire guards who beat an incarcerated man, breaking both his legs. Those officers pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, avoiding jail time.”(1)

Currently, six of the former correctional officers involved in killing Brooks are being charged with murder, three with manslaughter, and one with evidence tampering. All ten seem to be negotiating with the NY District Attorney towards settlements, their fortunes at trial not helped by body camera video evidence depicting the murder they committed.(3) Additionally, one NY prisoner wrote to us to report that the initial report of Brooks’s death featured the false cause of overdose before an investigation was begun into the true cause, and that the officer who falsified the cause of death was transferred from their post but not fired for this falsification.

Five days before the pig strike, prisoners rose up at Collins Correctional Facility. As noted by The Real Movement Report, the extent of the uprising varies greatly depending on asking the DOC, former employees, or the press.(4) In response, the New York State prison system was placed on lockdown and Correctional Emergency Response struggled for 12 hours to regain control of the facility. There was another disruption at Riverview Correctional Facility on February 20th which also saw prisoners taking control of some areas and Emergency Response crews eventually reasserting control.(5)

In response to the strikes and riots, over 3500 National Guard members were mobilized by NY Governor Kathy Hochul to bring repression back to the staff-abandoned prisons. Then the state filed an injunction forcing C.O.s to return to work, resulting in an agreement with the C.O. union and termination and ban from future employment of 2000 employees who refused to return by March 4th. The deal reduced 24 hour mandatory overtime for pigs and modified the HALT Act.(6) This 2021 law set a maximum of 15 days solitary confinement for prisoners, established reporting guidelines, and prohibited solitary prior to a disciplinary hearing and access to legal counsel.(7) The state agreed with the union early in March to create a commission examining the HALT Act, and to suspend the portions of the act which require out-of-cell programming for prisoners, for 90 days.(8)

The wildcat strike was not sanctioned by the C.O. union and was illegal based upon a law preventing the striking of certain NY public employees. On March 27th many of the 2000 C.O.s who had been fired and barred from future employment rallied at the state capitol. Despite the pause of aspects of the bill, demonstrators called for further “improvements” to the HALT Act. Although the source in question does not name or count speakers behind each different position from the rally, some called for changes to “make our prisons safer” and others suggested the state follow the Mandela Rules, a series of UN-sanctioned standards for prisoner treatment including a list of “human rights” which are routinely denied to U.$. prisoners including recreation, medical care and healthy food. The Mandela Rules limit solitary to 15 days.(9)

The prisoner (support) movement should organize against the repeal of the HALT Act. Solitary confinement is torture, it harms people, it prevents rehabilitation and prevents prisoners from coming together in a productive way.

The New York State prison system is now attempting to release some prisoners early because of the staffing shortage resulting from C.O. layoffs. Releases may be available to those whose sentences end in 15-110 days and don’t have violent or “serious” felonies, but the scale is unclear.(10) Additional reforms proposed by the Hochul government include expanding programs for prisoners to reduce their sentences, also vague, and lowering the minimum age of C.O.s from 21 to 18 in order to attract more pigs to the workforce.(11) Democrats wish to slightly reduce the prison population and hire new C.O.s whereas Republicans wish to simply reinstate all the dismissed pigs.

This story saw two different NY prison riots develop in which prisoners took control of portions of their prisons for small periods of time. Beyond selfishness, the weakness of these C.O.s was put in full display, needing to depend on emergency responders and the national guard to quell prisoner uprisings. And before all that, a comrade explains:

“Gang members have placed a statewide hit on me all because I gotten myself in an argument with a prison guard at Green Haven C.F. …The gang members are helping the prison administration run the prisons, which you know has a pig shortage. …The head of security is a motherfucker and have you killed quick.”

C.O.s are powerful enough to murder a lone prisoner in an 18-versus-one fight but helpless against the unified actions of even a handful of inmates who are upset with the status quo, as they even rely on other prisoners to do their dirty work.

These events are related to a trend of increasing retaliation against C.O. abuse in NY prisons, 2024 assaults against staff having doubled those of the previous year in certain months.(12) One important question is the underlying reason for the recent increase in retaliation, between poorer conditions, increased repression, heightened class consciousness among the (imprisoned) lumpen, or a combination. A more speculative question is if these instances of prison takeovers represent growth towards prison occupations akin to Attica, complete with advanced leadership and political demands.

Whatever is changing in the relationship between the C.O.s and the state, it is evidently driven by factors within the prison population, in this case greater retaliation against oppression. Can the bourgeoisie resolve the under-staffing crisis without improving conditions in prisons or releasing prisoners? The imperialists need prisons for population control, and simultaneously want high wages, low taxes and high spending on guards to “keep the community safe?” This balance of contradictions parallels ongoing policy debates among the imperialists regarding “border control” and deportation of migrants.

Certainly, the labor aristocrats is favoring more national oppression as a solution to perceived scarcity, rather than the formation of internationalist consciousness. The C.O.s did not rally en masse to convict their murderous co-“workers” but to support them, demanding an increase of repression against prisoners, as well as for reduced mandatory overtime: the timeless labor aristocracy dream of receiving more money for less work relative to the global proletariat. Where is the demonstration for the C.O.s’ victims?

Prisoners and supporters should be organizing against solitary, and asserting more alliances and sovereignty in their prisons in the face of C.O.s who are more concerned with repression than providing food, healthcare or other prisoner needs. Spread ULK to friends, request our September 9th study pack on the history of the Attica rebellion, and please submit any reports regarding conditions in New York or other prisons experiencing neglectful or abusive C.O.s and fighting back.

<sup>Notes:
1. https://nysfocus.com/2025/02/19/why-new-york-prison-guards-strike
2. https://apnews.com/article/new-york-prison-strike-guards-fired-f5700f3437b9021f1435fa90fb8e7f08
3. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/prosecutor-makes-offers-to-10-new-york-prison-guards-charged-in-inmates-death/ar-AA1C0BDP
4. https://therealmovementreport.substack.com/p/new-york-jailer-strikes-enter-7th
5. https://www.wwnytv.com/2025/02/20/inmates-take-over-what-happened-riverview/
6. https://www.northcountrynow.com/stories/after-terminating-2000-corrections-officers-state-plans-to-release-inmates-early-due-to-staffing,292130
7. https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/senate-passes-halt-solitary-confinement-act
8. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/former-ny-correction-officers-rally-for-prison-safety-reforms-amid-mass-firing-controversy/ar-AA1BNMIc
9. https://gothamist.com/news/new-york-prison-strike-ends-as-75-of-officers-return-to-work-officials-say
10. https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/crime/new-york-to-release-some-prison-inmates-early-over-shortage-of-guard-staff/ar-AA1C6dCv
11. https://www.wrvo.org/2025-04-02/ny-gov-kathy-hochul-proposes-new-prison-reforms-in-the-face-of-staffing-crisis
12. https://www.timesunion.com/projects/2025/prison-turmoil/</sup>

Addiction is a disease/syndrome that is not dependent upon any given drug. As an addict and alcoholic, what this means to me is that I am a meth addict even though I have never tried meth. I am addicted to K2 even though I have never tried K2. My drug of choice is alcohol, but my struggle is with addiction. My method of combating my addiction in prison is:

1. Not using any substances
2. Refusing to be ashamed of myself
3. Sharing my experience, strength and hope with the addict who is still suffering.

While addiction cuts across class, nationality, ideology, and gender, it concentrates in prison as many of us committed crimes in order to fuel our addiction. Addiction thrives in an atmosphere of shame, of hiding, and of loneliness. All of that and more is the atmosphere of prison. It is incredibly difficult to stay sober by myself. I need community in order to maintain my sobriety.

One incredibly important aspect of recovery that is missing from the revolutionary 12 step program is the personal stories of recovery that form the back of each 12 step book. These stories are essential as they serve as that community of recovery and way for us to relate and be inspired. I would be more than happy to contribute to the revolutionary 12 step program.

Oakland, CA – Organizations came together on March 29 for a caravan from East Oakland to City Hall promoting the AEH street program, aka Artivists Ending Hostilities. Initiators included a number of former prisoners who participated it in the 2011 and 2013 hunger strikes in California, as well as the organization of currently incarcerated people P.E.P. Talk - Pre-Entry Platform. Former prisoners of CDCr spoke at the rally on the need to bring the message of peace from the original AEH (Agreement to End Hostilities) to the streets. Organizers distributed and read the text of original AEH and a recent message from Cellblock 2 Cityblock.

Kat Brooks of the Anti Police Terror Project was one of the speakers who really got to the heart of things:

“The state creates the conditions in our communities that they know creates violence.”

Ey went on to condemn Amerikan koncentration kamps as a form of violence, saying the carceral state is the most violent institution in the world. Another comrade read from/paraphrased the intro of the Communist Party of Aztlán’s essay on homelessness, making the connection that homelessness is also a form of violence that we must come together to end.

Of course, it is up to the oppressed to change our conditions. Youth from Lulu’s House participated in the event, speaking on their own recent transformations from petty criminals to active community members. One said:

“We gotta push the movement too, it starts with us.”

While another pointed out:

“If you’re scared of the youth you’ll never understand them.”

One of the adults present who wasn’t scared to help these youth change was a BART cop (Bay Area Rapid Transit). This “officer friendly” approach is a well-known counter-insurgency strategy of the occupying forces. They hire cops to do community work, who aren’t involved in the violent repression work, but do intelligence gathering for the state while helping to divide the occupied community.

Independence is one of the principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons for this very reason. There is no progress towards liberation in the united front if it is working with the very imperialist state that is oppressing us.

Minister King X echoed this principle of independence when speaking about learning from the elders released from prison while the U.$. government is smashing the Department of Education. We must learn from the struggles of oppressed people.

Minister King X was one of the MC’s and organizers of the event, representing the Artivist Kadre trying to engage the youth and the oppressed in the movement through artistic expression. Ras Kass was also there representing the Artivist Kadre from Los Angeles. They were sporting patches promoting the New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist (N.A.R.N.) ideology and the AEH. The Artivist Kadre are working with P.E.P. Talk, BOSS (another release support program) and others to address racism, fascism, sex trafficking and more in California.

Hyping up the threat of dangerous gangs of “super-predators.” Using confidential informants, tattoos, and appearance to label people “gang members.” Using that gang affiliation to imprison and torture people. These draconian methods are familiar to readers of ULK, and to those who’ve spent time in U.$. prisons in general. The Trump regime has made this headline news for the whole country.

In recent weeks, hundreds of Venezuelans have been deported from the United $tates to a supermax prison in El Salvador. The Trump regime justified this with the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which allows for the deportation of non-citizens during wartime, and was last used during WWII to deport Germans and Italians and roundup Japanese in internment camps, seizing their assets for Euro-Amerikans. Trump claimed these people were part of a gang conducting “irregular warfare” in the United $tates, but there seems to be no evidence that Tren de Aragua is even a widely functioning organization here. In February, the U.$. State Department designated Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and a list of Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

A federal court has ordered a halt to the deportations, but the Department of Justice is defying the order. A legal battle continues, while the executive branch continues to defy the courts.

Venezuela has been a consistent target of U.$. imperialism since the rise of Hugo Chavez to power in 1999.(1) As a result almost 600,000 Venezuelans have been accepted into the United $tates with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Trump attempted to cancel TPS for Venezuelans, but a federal court has deemed the move illegal. Without TPS, many from Venezuela, Haiti, Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan and elsewhere could no longer legally work in the United $tates and could be legally deported.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is getting special attention as the Trump administration admitted eir deportation was a mistake, and that they can’t get em back from Salvadorean custody. This is despite a court order that prevented em from being sent back to El Salvador, where ey had fled gang violence as a youth. Abrego Garcia has no criminal charges, for what that’s worth, but was labelled a member of MS-13 by a pig citing a “confidential informant” during a round up of day laborers some years ago. As a result, Abrego Garcia has been disappeared from eir family and sent to a torture unit in the very country ey fled for safety reasons.(2)

The ACLU obtained a copy of the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide” being used to deport people.(3) Once establishing someone is over 14 years old, of Venezuelan origin and without U.$. citizenship, a point system is used to “validate” gang members. A “TdA” tattoo gets you 4 points while 8 points are required to qualify as validated. The Homeland Security guide lists photos of tattoos like crowns and stars that are “TdA”. In addition, wearing Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan athletic wear are listed. When was the last time you saw someone with Air Jordans on and a star tattoo?

Student Activists Targeted

Educational institutions from Columbia University in New York to the University of California system are enforcing the fascist repression on their campuses, from expelling students during Biden’s Presidency, to disappearing them off the streets and from their homes under the Trump regime. Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk is being detained for writing an article criticizing the U.$.-I$rael genocide in Palestine. Mahmoud Khalil, who was a respected negotiator between Columbia University and the pro-Palestine student encampment last year, told eir story in a recent statement from 18 March 2025:

“My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana… On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. …

“My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.”

“… Columbia [University] targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students – some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation – and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.

“If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. …”(4)

Other targeted students have gone into hiding. At the same time, students across the country are coming together to stand with and defend those who may be targeted next. We commend the solidarity being shown. Schools and prisons are somewhat unique in our society due to the collective identities of their populations and their abilities to organize. With the recent announcements from the Trump regime that they will be deporting U.$. citizens with criminal records to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, prisoners need to be prepared to stand together as students are learning to do. While there are many recent examples to the contrary, there is a long history of U.$. prisoners standing up for one another due to the group consciousness that comes with facing a common oppressor every day.

Fascism Coming Home

The United $tates has been using long-term solitary confinement for decades on a scale not seen elsewhere in humyn history. Physicians for Human Rights released a report in 2024 exposing the use of solitary confinement in ICE detention centers contrary to government directives to limit its use to absolute necessity. They documented at least 14,000 cases of people being put in solitary confinement by ICE from 2018 to 2023. Durations in solitary averaged 27 days, with 42 cases lasting over a year. At the time, in 2024, ICE held over 35,000 people, making it the world’s largest immigration detention system.(5)

Conditions are likely worse for those sent to El Salvador, where President Bukele has stated that the only way gang members will leave the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) ey built in 2023 is in a coffin. With a capacity of over 40,000, there are 65 to 70 prisoners held per cell. “CECOT prisoners do not receive visits and are never allowed outdoors. The prison does not offer workshops or educational programs to prepare them to return to society after their sentences.”(6) Bukele has been promoting images of shaved gang members, dressed all in white, being warehoused and man-handled by masked prison guards online since the prison opened. This propaganda campaign has appealed to the pro-fascist elements of Amerika. And with that support, Trump is incorporating this prison into the Amerikan international prison system and sending hundreds of people there from the United $tates. This is a shift closer to home from the network of dark sites, and infamous prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, that were used to torture and hold without trial oppressed people across the Muslim world.

Most press sources are reporting the Amerikans paid $6 million for 238 prisoners to be held in CECOT, which some point out is much less than what it would cost to imprison them in the United $tates. But it is an amount that will greatly help El Salvador to fund their monstrosity of a prison. It doesn’t make sense that the imperialists are paying to have these prisoners held, but then claim they cannot return people like Abrego Garcia back to their families.

In the 1980s, U.$.-sponsored death squads, trained at the School of the Americas in Georgia, killed and displaced countless people across Central America that were fighting for socialism and to remove imperialism from their countries.(7) Many children of this war in El Salvador were displaced to Los Angeles where they joined Barrio 18 or formed the new Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), were persecuted by the state, and then exported back to El Salvador. We’ve reported on efforts at peace between these groups in 2013, which coincided with investment by USAID and the building of new U.$.-inspired prisons in El Salvador.(8) But conditions for the people of El Salvador did not improve, and they voted for President Nayib Bukele who both utilized the lumpen organizations in eir political organizing and later turned on them as a scapegoat for the ills of the country in a fascist repression campaign.(9)

The struggle against fascism in this country relies on the coming together of people to defend migrant populations and students currently under attack. As fascism rises, we see the campaigns of groups like the ACLU coming closer to those of MIM(Prisons). As important legal battles are taking place, we also see the spreading recognition that we can’t rely on the courts to save us. We must have a plan B. We must build our plan B.

<sup>Notes:
1. Soso of MIM(Prisons), January 2019, Imperialists Push Coup in Venezuela to Secure Oil for Amerikans, Under Lock & Key 67.
2. Democracy Now!, 2 April 2025.
3. https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2025-03-31/ice-tren-de-aragua-venezuela-deportation-el-salvador
4. https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/a-letter-from-palestinian-activist-mahmoud-khalil
5. Physicians for Human Rights, 6 February 2024, https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2025-03-31/ice-tren-de-aragua-venezuela-deportation-el-salvador.
6. Aleman & Cano, 17 March 2025, “What to know about El Salvador’s mega-prison after Trump sent hundreds of immigrants there”, Los Angeles Times.
7. MIM(Prisons), June 2009, FBI Arrests Peacemaker, Under Lock & Key 9.
8. MIM(Prisons), March 2013, One-Year Anniversary of Peace Treaty in El Salvador, Under Lock & Key 31.
9. Badgreen of MIM(Prisons), September 2023, 8,000 Military and Police Deployed in Cabanas Province, El Salvador, Under Lock & Key 83.</sup>